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Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was largely informed by his notion of a shared Russian-Ukrainian history, which allegedly does not give Ukraine the right to a sovereign state. The current conflict in Ukraine is, in this sense, also a dispute about history. This panel brings together two leading historians of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War to discuss the war’s roots and significance from a historical perspective. The speakers will address key questions such as: What has Ukraine’s relationship with Russia been over the long term and how might the war change it? Does the war in Ukraine mark a break with the post-Cold War order, a return to the Cold War, or the beginning of something completely new? How should we think about China’s role in the conflict? Is the war a moment of opportunity or crisis for the West?

Serhii Plokhy is Mikhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. He has written broadly on the history of Eastern Europe and Ukraine, on issues ranging from the premodern and early modern history of Eastern Slavs, to the Soviet Union’s collapse, nationalism and nationalist myth-making, and Chernobyl. His many publications include Yalta: The Price of Peace, The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, and Chernobyl: The History of a Tragedy. Professor Plokhy’s most recent work, Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disaster, will be published later this year.
This event is co-sponsored by The Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Odd Arne Westad is the Elihu Professor of History at Yale University, where he also teaches in the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and serves as director of International Security Studies. Professor Westad specializes in modern international and global history, especially the history of eastern Asia since the 18th century. He has published widely on the history of the Cold War, China-Russia relations, and the Chinese civil war and Communist party, and is currently working on histories of empire and imperialism, above all in Asia. Through books such as Cold War and Revolution, Decisive Encounters, The Global Cold War, and The Cold War: A World History, Westad has revolutionized the field of Cold War history.

Europe’s “Eastern Crisis” has witnessed the massing of military forces, armed intervention, and the forceful occupation of territory, combined with harsh rhetoric and outright falsehoods that hinder the pursuit of diplomatic solutions. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the 1930s, when another authoritarian state sought to reverse the consequences of what it perceived as an unfair peace settlement and mounted an aggressive campaign that engulfed the world in a disastrous war. An interdisciplinary panel of Russian, Ukrainian, and US experts will help us understand how we got to this point and what can be done.

Panelists

Mark R. Beissinger, Henry W. Putnam Professor of Politics, Princeton University

Bryn Rosenfeld, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University

Kateryna Pishchikova, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations, eCampus University

Nicholas Rostow, Visiting Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

Moderator

Matthew Evangelista, President White Professor of History and Political Science, Department of Government, Cornell University

Presented by the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, with co-sponsorship from the Institute of European Studies at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs, Cornell University.

About the Series

The new Einaudi Center Critical Conversations Series brings together world-class regional, historical, and comparative experts to promote deeper understanding of global current events and emerging crises on the world stage. The stakes for our shared future have never been higher—so please join us for these critical conversations.

Register here

This webinar, hosted by the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, features experts in finance, international policy, and labor economics discussing the unprecedented sanctions being levied at Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

This is a hybrid event. Registration information is below.

Dr. Henry Maar argues for the significance of the often-overlooked Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign to the arms control talks at the end of the Cold War. Launched in 1979 based on the ideas of Randall Forsberg, the Freeze campaign rallied the public for a simple, yet radical proposal: bilaterally halt (or "freeze") the testing, deployment, and production of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Freeze campaign soon catapulted into the mainstream of political discussion, garnering bipartisan endorsements from the US Congress. The highest levels of the Reagan White House privately conceded the antinuclear backlash was potentially the most important national security challenge facing the administration. As the Freeze grew in popularity, the administration was left with a choice: reverse its nuclear saber-rattling or continue to face the ire of the public at the ballot box.

About the speaker

Henry Maar is a modern US Historian specializing in the relationship between domestic politics, peace activism, and US foreign relations. He is the author of FREEZE! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War, published by Cornell University Press. He received his Ph.D. in History from UC Santa Barbara in 2015 and was subsequently the Agnese N. Huary post-doctoral fellow at New York University's Center for the Study of the Cold War and the United States. He has previously taught at UC Santa Barbara and Shanghai Jiao Tong University and is currently a lecturer at California State University, Northridge.

Read his recently published article in the Washington Post.

This seminar is part of the spring seminar series with the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS).

Register here

In accordance with university event guidance, all campus visitors who are 12 years old or older must also present a photo ID, as well as proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or results of a recent negative COVID-19 test. If you are not currently participating in the Cornell campus vaccination/testing program, please bring proof of vaccination or the results of a recent negative test.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine constitutes the first major land war in Europe in decades. It threatens lives across the region, the post–Cold War international order—and the stability of the global economy, as the United States, European allies, and countries around the world have imposed severe sanctions on Russia and supplied varying levels of aid to Ukraine.

In cooperation with the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and College of Arts and Sciences, the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies has convened this expert panel to respond to the injustice and massive violation of sovereignty, human rights, and peace.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of Russian domestic and foreign policy, Ukrainian nationhood and security response, human rights and migration, economic sanctions’ impact, and international and European consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The panel includes Dmitry Bykov, a Russian dissident and Open Society University Network threatened scholar sponsored by Global Cornell and hosted by the Einaudi Center's Institute for European Studies (IES), in partnership with Ithaca City of Asylum.

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Panelists:

Mabel Berezin (IES Director; Professor, Department of Sociology/A&S)Dmitry Bykov (Russian writer and dissident; scholar at risk hosted by IES)Cristina Florea (Assistant Professor, Department of History/A&S)Nicholas Mulder (Assistant Professor, Department of History/A&S)Bryn Rosenfeld (Assistant Professor, Department of Government/A&S)Stephen Yale-Loehr (Migrations faculty fellow; Professor of Immigration Law Practice, Cornell Law School)Moderator:

Rachel Beatty Riedl (Einaudi Center Director; Professor, Department of Government/A&S and Cornell Brooks School)

Introduction:

Wendy Wolford (Vice Provost of International Affairs; Professor, Department of Global Development, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)

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Live Screening: Statler 196

Students: Join the campus community in Statler 196 at 4:30 to watch the panel live. Sponsored by the Einaudi Center, A&S, and Cornell Brooks School.

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About the Series

The new Einaudi Center Critical Conversations Series brings together world-class regional, historical, and comparative experts to promote deeper understanding of global current events and emerging crises on the world stage. The stakes for our shared future have never been higher—so please join us for these critical conversations.