A Soviet West

Nationhood, regionalism, and empire in the annexed western borderlands

Bibliographic Data

ID11047110
AuthorsWilliam Jay Risch (Georgia College & State University, corresponding author), William Risch
Year2015
Volume43
Issue1
Pages63-81
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNationalities Papers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5992 • E-ISSN: 1465-3923
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1080/00905992.2014.956072
OpenAlexW1985427428
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited27

This article considers the role the Soviet Union's western borderlands annexed during World War II played in the evolution of Soviet politics of empire. Using the Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine as case studies, it argues that Sovietization had a profound impact on these borderlands, integrating them into a larger Soviet polity. However, guerrilla warfare and Soviet policy-making indirectly led to these regions becoming perceived as more Western and nationalist than other parts of the Soviet Union. The Baltic Republics and Western Ukraine differed in their engagement with the Western capitalist world. Different experiences of World War II and late Stalinism and contacts with the West ultimately led to this region becoming Soviet, yet different from the rest of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet West was far from uniform, perceived differences between it and the rest of the Soviet Union justified claims at the end of the 1980s that the Soviet Union was an empire rather than a family of nations

Ancient history · Democracy · Development economics · Economic history · Empire · Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Polity · Regionalism (politics · Soviet union · World War II · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Soviet and Russian History

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