"Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism"
On this episode, Misha and Cullan speak with Fabian Baumann, a research associate at the University of Heidelberg, whose latest book Dynasty Divided (2023, NIU Press) uniquely approaches the nuanced history of Ukrainian and Russian nationalism through a prominent Kievan family of journalists, scholars, and politicians. Thanks for listening!
ABOUT THE BOOK From Cornell University Press: Dynasty Divided uses the story of a prominent Kievan family of journalists, scholars, and politicians to analyze the emergence of rivaling nationalisms in nineteenth-century Ukraine, the most pivotal borderland of the Russian Empire. The Shul'gins identified as Russians and defended the tsarist autocracy; the Shul'hyns identified as Ukrainians and supported peasant-oriented socialism. Fabian Baumann shows how these men and women consciously chose a political position and only then began their self-fashioning as members of a national community, defying the notion of nationalism as a direct consequence of ethnicity.
Baumann asks what made individuals into determined nationalists in the first place, revealing the close link to private lives, including intimate family dramas and scandals. He looks at how nationalism emerged from domestic spaces, and how women played an important (if often invisible) role in fin-de-siècle politics. Dynasty Divided explains how nineteenth-century Kievans cultivated their national self-images and how, by the twentieth century, Ukraine steered away from Russia. The two branches of this family of Russian nationalists and Ukrainian nationalists epitomize the struggles for modern Ukraine.
PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded on December 1, 2023 at the 2023 ASEEES Convention in Philadelphia. If you have questions, comments, or would like to be a guest on the show, please email slavxradio@utexas.edu and we will be in touch!
PRODUCTION CREDITS Assistant EP/Host: Misha Simanovskyy (@MSimanovskyy) Associate Producer/Host: Cullan Bendig (@cullanwithana) Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Assistant Producer: Taylor Helmcamp Assistant Producer: Basil Fedun Assistant Producer: Eliza Fisher Social Media Manager: Faith VanVleet Supervising Producer: Nicholas Pierce SlavX Editorial Director: Sam Parrish
Main Theme by Charlie Harper and additional background music by Beat Mekanik, Alex Productions)
Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel (@M_S_Daniel) www.msdaniel.com
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Special Guest: Fabian Baumann.