L'Ukraine : une nation écartelée entre des empires / Université inter-âges de l'Ain

Ukraine: a nation torn between empires.
Olivier and Lyane GUILLAUME


In President Putin's mind, Ukraine is just one part of "Greater Russia", which needs to be reconquered, if not in its entirety, then at least in its Russian-speaking eastern part. While it's true that Russia and Ukraine share a long, often painful history, the fact remains that Ukraine has been nourished by other influences (Poland, Austria-Hungary) and, over the centuries, has forged its own identity through its political path, language and religions, culminating in the creation of an independent state at the time of the implosion of the USSR. Since 1991, Ukraine has embarked on a path of democracy and rapprochement with Western countries. This is exactly what Putin is criticizing Ukraine for, and what, in his eyes, justifies the invasion of February 24, 2022. Initially, Olivier Guillaume will examine the question of Ukrainian identity and the country's relations with Russia and its neighbors from a historical perspective. Lyane Guillaume will then shed more personal light on contemporary Ukraine
contemporary Ukraine through her own experience and the well-documented account she has drawn from it, Les errantes; Chroniques ukrainiennes, published in 2014 by Editions du Rocher (Prix Balzac Verkhivnia 2015; translated into Ukrainian).

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