Key historical events and upheavals that mark the end of an era produce iconic images. Many of the images associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred in August 1991 when the so-called State Committee for the State of Emergency attempted to seize power in Moscow.
A group of hardliners from the army, secret service, and police formed the core of the conspiracy. They were united in the conviction that Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms would ultimately destroy the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was not in Moscow at that time, and it was his rival and later Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, who climbed on a tank in front of the White House to address demonstrators protesting the coup d’etat. This image travelled the world and came to encapsulate the dramatic events which appeared to mark the beginning of a new, democratic era in Russia.
Five days later, on 24 August 1991, another event took place about 750 kilometres west of Moscow. In Kyiv, the Verkhovna Rada, the official parliament of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, declared Ukraine’s independence. This landmark vote, however, was hardly noticed in the West. That is because even today the story of the downfall of the Soviet Union is told largely from the perspective of Moscow. Colonial narratives profoundly influenced and continue to influence historical analysis.
This lecture offered a different perspective on the end of Moscow’s hegemony by focusing on the role of Ukrainian society in the 1980s and the development of Polish-Ukrainian relations in the lead-up to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Franziska Davies is an assistant professor of Eastern European History at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She specializes in the modern history of Ukraine, Russia, and Poland. Her most recent publications include a collection of essays, Ukraine in Europe: Traum and Trauma of a Nation, published in 2023.
IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Vejvoda provided commentary and moderated the lecture.
