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Popular and Scholarly Primordialism: The Politics of Ukrainian History during Russia's 2022 Invasion of Ukraine

journal contribution
posted on 2022-10-18, 19:52 authored by Alexander MaxwellAlexander Maxwell
Abstract While nationalism theorists have mostly rejected primordialism, politicians and the wider public typically have a primordialist and essentialist understanding of national history. On the eve of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin invoked several primordialist tropes so as to justify military action, which is unsurprising in a politician. Yet Western scholars criticizing Putin's historical narratives in newspaper editorials or in scholarly talks posted to YouTube only rarely suggest modernist or social constructivist historical narratives. Several posit counter-primordialisms instead. Primordialism, then, enjoys more support than is widely realized, even among scholars who ought to be familiar with its problems. Meanwhile modernist theorists of nationalism, however popular among nationalism theorists, require more vigorous promotion in academic circles.

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Preferred citation

Maxwell, A. (n.d.). Popular and Scholarly Primordialism: The Politics of Ukrainian History during Russia's 2022 Invasion of Ukraine. Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2022-0008

Journal title

Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics

Volume

0

Issue

0

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Publication status

Published online

Online publication date

2022-10-13

ISSN

2570-5857

eISSN

2570-5857

Language

en

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