Furrows of Empire

PhD project
This project is part of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukraine Studies (KIU). 
Supervisor of this project: Prof. Dr. Jan C. Behrends

The project examines the entangled history of Dutch and German colonial ambitions in Ukraine over the 20th Century from a comparative perspective. Research is subdivided into three main chronological 'windows': the pre-WWI and immediate post-revolutionary phase up to the Holodomor; the Second World War and post-war conflict years; and the era of transformation in the latter decades of the 20th century. In doing so, this project addresses a noticeable Ukraine-shaped hole in Dutch and more broadly Western historiography, in which the many, extensive, and incredibly varied interactions between Dutch/German actors on the one hand and Ukrainian actors on the other have been severely neglected, both academically, and, as a result, popularly. 
The stress of this project is on the colonial aspect of Dutch/German perspectives, while maintaining Ukrainian voices, not as passive subjects of a Western gaze, but as active possessors of agency in their various role and positions vis-a-vis Dutch and German observers.