The article provides an overview of the most recent scholarship on nation building in Ukraine during the long nineteenth century. One of the most important tendencies is the rise of what might be called the neo-or post-statist paradigm that underlines the relevance of early modern legacies for nineteenth-century activism and qualifies the image of Ukraine as a typical East and Central European, non-historical nation. As a result, the emphasis has shifted from the Austrian to the Russian Empire. Also, these new studies tend to pay much more attention to the transnational and entangled qualities of politics in nineteenth-century Ukraine. Nevertheless, contributions focusing on the 'non-historical-nation' aspects of the question still bring important insights and cannot be disregarded. The liminal position of Ukraine makes it especially well suited to serve as a testing ground for some received wisdoms about European nation building in general. Apart from considering the limitations of and the possible gains from presentday scholarship, the article offers some thoughts on how the political-military crisis might impact the study of Ukrainian nation building in the future.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.