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Talk by Richard Sakwa: Ukraine Crisis and the Defeat of Europe
March 10, 2015 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
FreeWHEN:
10 March 2015 at 6:00pm. Tea/Coffee reception from 5.30
WHERE:
102 Middlesex Street, City of London, London, E1 7EZ
Admission:
Free. If you want to attend, please RSVP to RAQUEL BARKER 020 7059 4481 or [email protected]
Richard Sakwa, Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent and author of Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (I.B.Tauris)
In 2014, history returned to Europe with a vengeance. The crisis over Ukraine once again brought back not only the spectre but the reality of war. On the hundredth anniversary of a war that had been spoken of as the war to end all war, the great powers once again lined up, amidst a barrage of propaganda and informational warfare, while many of the smaller powers made their contribution to the festival of irresponsibility. The fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years earlier and the subsequent end of the Cold War had been attended by expectations of a new era of reconciliation and healing in Europe. All these hopes were crushed in 2014, and Europe is now set for a new era of division and confrontation. When faced with a no less demanding challenge in the postcommunist era – to heal the Cold War divisions and to build the foundations for a united continent – the EU failed. In this talk the ‘defeat of Europe’ is defined in three ways. These will be explored in the talk.
Biography:
Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent at Canterbury and an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He has published widely on Soviet, Russian and post-communist affairs. Books include:
Postcommunism (Buckingham, Open University Press, 1999); the edited volume Chechnya: From Past to Future (London, Anthem Press; Sterling, VA, Stylus Publishers, 2005); Contextualising Secession: Normative Aspects of Secession Struggles (Oxford University Press, 2003), co-edited with Bruno Coppieters; Russian Politics and Society (London & New York, Routledge, 4th edn 2008), and Putin: Russia’s Choice (Routledge, 2nd edn 2008).
His book on The Crisis of Russian Democracy: Factionalism, Sovereignty and the Medvedev Succession was published in 2011. In 2014 he published Putin and the Oligarch: The Khodorkovsky – Yukos Affair (London and New York, I. B. Tauris) and his study Putin Redux: Power and Contradiction in Contemporary Russia (London and New York, Routledge). Latest works are an edited volume (with Piotr Dutkiewicz) Eurasian Integration: The View from Within (Routledge, 2015) and Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 2015).
COPIES OF ‘FRONTLINE UKRAINE’ WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR SALE AT THE TALK.