Soviet Era
On the eve of independence, eight of Ukraine’s thirteen parties referred to the country as an exploited “colony” in their programs. After 1991 most Ukrainian historians described Ukrainians as victims of colonialism while literary scholars drew attention to the nation's “post-colonial” condition. Most Russian historians stressed that Ukrainians had also been agents of empire and characterized Ukraine's historical status as “semi-colonial.” Whereas academics disagree as to whether central policies were “Russian,” tsarist, or soviet and intentionally “anti-Ukrainian,” and whether the development that did occur was worth the cost, most Russians and a minority of the population in Ukraine regard the country's historical association with Russia favourably and deny that it was a colonial victim of Russian imperial power.
Read more about this topic: Russian Colonialism
Famous quotes containing the words soviet and/or era:
“Today he plays jazz; tomorrow he betrays his country.”
—Stalinist slogan in the Soviet Union (1920s)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)