Dear Colleagues, The latest issue of Ab Imperio (4/2023) is now available at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/52216
The “Methodology and Theory” section features a discussion forum “Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise,” structured as a discussion of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s provocative essay that proposes applying the mode of black comedy to the narration of Soviet history to overcome the domination of self-referential narratives in the field. This problem is addressed by Anne Lounsbery, Mark Lipovetsky, Evgeny Dobrenko, Galina Babak, Artemy Magun, Mark Edele, Yuri Slezkine, Ronald Grigor Suny, Benjamin Nathans, and Ivan Sablin.
The “History” section presents two articles prepared within the international research project “Post-Imperial Diversities – Majority-Minority Relations in the Transition from Empires to Nations-States.” Timothy Blauvelt and Anton Vacharadze examine the struggle of the Democratic Republic of Georgia to accommodate Abkhazians’ demands for autonomy in 1918–1921. Wiktor Marzec’s article studies the process of drafting the Polish constitution adopted in 1921 regarding the management of ethnocultural diversity in a highly heterogeneous and politically divided postimperial polity.
In the “Historiography” section, Yuri Radchenko analyzes the diaries of Ivan Lysiak-Rudnyts’kyi (1919–1984), the American and Canadian historian of Ukrainian descent. Specifically, the focus is on Rudnytsky’s evolving views of Jews and Jewishness from the mid-1930s through World War II and the Holocaust period to the 1950s.
“Methodology and Theory” section:
“Fun Facts vs. Dreary Concepts: Making Sense of Diversity and the Burden of Agency” by the Editors.
Forum AI: “Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise”:
“LOL at Loss: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise” by the Editors.
“Soviet History as Black Comedy” by Sheila Fitzpatrick.
“History Is Not a Novel” by Anne Lounsbery.
“Inverted Binoculars” by Mark Lipovetsky.
“The Great Imitator: Russian History from Potemkin Villages to Kuban Cossacks” by Evgeny Dobrenko.
“Kafka’s Smile” by Galina Babak.
“Embracing Laughter” by Artemy Magun.
“Laughing about Dictatorships – and Ourselves” by Mark Edele.
“Laughter in the Dark” by Yuri Slezkine.
“Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Black Comedy” by Ronald Grigor Suny.
“The Longue Durée of Dark Humor” by Benjamin Nathans.
“Have You Heard a Chukchi Joke? In Search of Other Soviet Comedies” by Ivan Sablin.
“History” section:
“Autonomy or Unitary Sovereignty: The Democratic Republic of Georgia and Abkhazia, 1918–1921” by Timothy Blauvelt and Anton Vacharadze.
“Making Basic Law in a Postimperial State: Diffusion, Adjustment, and Legal Cunning in the Constitutional Debate on Ethnocultural Diversity in Poland, 1919–1922” by Wiktor Marzec.
“Historiography” section:
“‘This... Was My Secret “Complex”’: Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky and the Jews” by Yuri Radchenko.
The issue also contains an extended section of book reviews.