This article provides a brief assessment of the way Western political scientists and international relations scholars analysed and understood the Soviet Union from the 1960s through December 1991. To this end, the article begins with an overview of the nature and basic traits of the Soviet system. Although the article discusses the importance of historical evidence used by political scientists to appraise the nature of Soviet politics and Soviet foreign policy, it does not rehash the once heated (and by now tedious) disputes that arose among Western historians in the late 1970s and 1980s, with so-called “revisionists” lambasting more orthodox historians1. Instead, the focus here is on the quality of Sovietological analyses in the West before December 1991, the new opportunities for archival research that emerged in the former USSR after 1991, and the grave obstacles to scholarship posed by Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine starting in 2022, including the draconian internal clampdown in Russia that accompanied the invasion. As part of this clampdown, the Russian government began arresting innocent foreign citizens and Russian pro democracy activists so they could be held hostage and traded in prisoner swaps for Russian spies and assassins – a policy that was bound to affect the willingness of Western scholars and graduate students to travel to Russia for archival research or any other purpose. The invasion and political crackdown also spurred many leading Russian scholars of Soviet history to go into long-term exile.
M. Kramer, The Soviet system, the Soviet state, and Western expertise on the USSR before and after 1991, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 19–34, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.1
Richard Pipes, a prolific and influential historian of Russia, had a significantly greater impact as a Sovietologist. The purpose of this article is to distil Pipes’s recommendations to Western policymakers on how to deal with the Russians. It is based on a study of Pipes’s writings on the topic. He advocated combining social scientific and humanistic approaches, drawing on both “hard” data like polling and census results and “soft” data like literature and history, striving to understand the mindset of one’s opponents, and avoiding “mirror imaging”. Pipes viewed Russian political culture as fundamentally authoritarian with xenophobic tendencies; its political system was characterised by elite domination, unaccountability of officials, weak rule of law, and a propensity to militarism and expansionism. During the Soviet era, the ruling elite promoted international tension and instilled a fear of foreign threats. Countering Soviet expansionism required a comprehensive grand strategy that involved leveraging institutional memory, employing propaganda to substitute for a free press, applying economic pressure, and insisting on reciprocity. It was also important to reckon with Russian feelings and urge Russians to follow a Western path. Pipes argued that pressuring the USSR would prompt the Politburo to implement reforms. Reagan’s hard line contributed to the selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader, apparently vindicating this approach.
„Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 35–57, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.2
In an era of deepening geopolitical rivalries and growing suspicion towards international exchange, when education diplomacy is increasingly viewed through the lens of national security or economic profit, the legacy of Stephen P. Duggan offers timely insight. As the founder and director of the Institute of International Education (IIE) from 1919 to 1946, Duggan led an ambitious effort to expand U.S. expertise and promote mutual understanding through academic and professional exchanges. His model of “pragmatic idealism” advocated proficiency in world affairs while navigating through a period marked by war, revolution, and American retreat into isolationism. Today, international education exchange programs face some of the same challenges, such as visa restrictions, suspicion of foreign influence, and declining public support. Yet, other elements further complicate the process, such as governmental interference in academic autonomy. These factors disrupt the original idea of enabling exchanges based on principles of academic freedom, with the dominant role of non-state actors. In the article, Duggan’s legacy of expanding American expertise in global affairs is based on a case study from East Central Europe. This example shows that Duggan’s work prefigured modern concepts of “soft power” and educational diplomacy. Duggan’s vision was neither utopian nor apolitical; it was grounded in the belief that durable peace and effective diplomacy begin with informed people-to-people ties. For these to be genuine and lasting, openness and partnership cooperation remain sine qua non.
A. Mazurkiewicz, Pragmatic idealism and academic autonomy: Stephen P. Duggan and the American model of international education, 1919–1946, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 59–95, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.3
The article examines the evolution of France’s foreign policy toward Russia, tracing the shift from historical fascination to active deterrence. It analyses the historical and ideological roots of France’s diplomatic stance in light of changing geopolitical dynamics. Drawing on historical accounts of Franco-Russian relations and recent policies under President Emmanuel Macron, the study employs qualitative analysis of French foreign policy discourse and strategic positioning in Europe. The findings indicate that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has prompted a major shift: historical ambivalence, once shaped by ideological sympathy and rivalry with the US, has given way to a unified European stance aligning France with Central European states. This reflects a broader ideological turn toward European unity and NATO-EU cooperation. France’s new approach is not merely reactive but part of a strategic vision of a geopolitically autonomous Europe, with Paris assuming a leading role in shaping a cohesive Western response to Russia.
J. Piekara, Legend and fascination, geopolitics and deterrence: Intellectual myths and neoteric French policy towards Russia, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 97–122, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.4
This article looks at how Moscow’s imperial mindset has long shaped the West’s view of Ukraine and East-Central Europe. It traces the problem back to Enlightenment thinkers and Hegel, whose ideas helped excuse ignoring smaller nations as real players on the world stage. Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 forces scholars to rethink the old imperial narratives that have justified aggression and dulled the world’s response to it. The author argues that “decolonising” how the West sees Russia and Ukraine should mean more than borrowing the usual tools from postcolonial studies or fitting Russian colonialism into the larger story of Western empires. A critical interrogation of the deeper intellectual habits that kept the region on the margins of Western thought is required, with specific focus on Cold War knowledge production. Ukraine’s struggle matters far beyond its borders, because it shows the playbook empires use to impose their own cultural, political, and social rules on smaller nations – and the clever ways they defend those moves at home and abroad. That is why the debate – kicked into high gear in 2022 and still going strong three years later – over the foundations of Ukrainian and regional studies has mostly stalled and even met loud pushback from many quarters. This article sets out to uncover the deeper reasons behind that resistance to updating the way we create and share knowledge about the region.
O. Avramchuk, The decolonisation trap and the quest to reclaim a “kidnapped” Europe, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 123–148, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.5
This article analyses the origins of a central element of Russia’s justification for its war against Ukraine, i.e., the claim that Ukraine is governed by a “Nazi regime”, by tracing it back to the Soviet-era construction of “Ukrainian nationalism” as an enemy image. It further examines why similar narratives have resonated with Western audiences in recent years. The article argues that the roots of these perceptions also lie in the Cold War era. For this period, it outlines the main contexts in which public debates about Ukrainian nationalism during World War II occurred and compares public perceptions with the state of historical research in the latter half of the twentieth century. Overall, the article argues that Ukrainian memory of the period of World War II can only be properly understood when the threat posed by Soviet and Russian imperial ambitions is also taken into account.
K. Struve, The Cold War origins of the Russian “Nazi” accusation against Ukraine: Soviet propaganda, Western memory, and historical knowledge, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 149–169, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.6
This paper examines the dominant tendencies in V. Putin’s official discourse concerning the Russo-Ukrainian war, arguing that language serves as a key tool in legitimising state policies and shaping public perceptions of war. Employing a hybrid CDA–content approach, the study identifies key discursive strategies, topoi, and recurring narrative patterns, capturing both the structural and repetitive dimensions of the discourse. The study focuses on Putin’s speeches delivered between 2021 and 2024, spanning the year leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine through the end of his fourth presidential term. The analysis reveals that these speeches combine commemorative and propagandistic elements to reinterpret the Soviet World War II legacy, portraying Russia as the rightful heir to the victory over Nazism while depicting the West as historically revisionist and inherently hostile. Within this framework, the Russo-Ukrainian war is framed as a continuation of the Great Patriotic War, with Russian soldiers cast as heirs to Soviet liberators and traditional values such as patriotism, unity, and endurance revived through World War II references.
D. Moskwa, Constructing the past, justifying the war: The analysis of selected Vladimir Putin speeches (2021–2024), „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 171–191, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.7
This text problematises the approach to research on contemporary Polish immigration to the US and, consequently, other groups emigrating from Central and Eastern Europe. This analysis is informed by observations derived from two seminal publications that emerged in 2022 and focus on the history of immigration and its ramifications within the context of American society: Carl J. Bon Tempo, Hasia Diner, Immigration: An American History, and Nancy Foner, One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America. Based on observations from these two books, the author reflects on ways of shaping knowledge about Polish immigration to the US in the early 21st century and possible future avenues of interpretation. The text emphasises the significance and application of history in the research and explanation of contemporary migration processes. Referring to the approaches presented in the discussed readings, the author attempts to identify three key thematic/analytical areas with a potential impact on the further development of research on recent Polish immigration to the US: the application of history in research on recent immigration, greater contextualisation of the analyses conducted, and the inclusion of the issues of knowledge production and reflexivity in research on Polish immigration to the US.
A. Fiń, Shaping the knowledge of Polish and other Central European immigration in the US in the 21st century: Reflections on the margins of the books by Carl J. Bon Tempo and asia Diner, “Immigration: An American History”, and Nancy Foner, “One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America”, „Yearbook of the Institute of East- Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 193–215, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.8
This essay is a modest attempt to trace the “incarnations” of Promethean thought that emerged in Poland in the interwar and postwar periods, during the Cold War, and especially after the collapse of communist ideology in Poland and the dismemberment of the USSR. The circle around Jerzy Giedroyc in Paris, the intellectual engagement of the former activists of the Promethean networks in various anti- -communist groups during the Cold War, and the protagonists of the Intermarium concept had common elements with the classical Prometheanism of the interwar period. The active support of students from Ukraine, Belarus, and the republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia by Polish educational institutions could be seen as a cultural dimension of certain neo-Promethean romantics. The conclusion is based on my own experience within the international scientific community of Prometheanism research since 2008.
Z. Gasimov, Prometheanism and its “incarnations”, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 217–244, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.9
Exile is a profoundly transcultural phenomenon: Émigré scholars bring knowledge and ideas from their homeland to their host societies, gain new insights from their position between two cultures, and have the potential to initiate intellectual transformations at home. The 20th-century waves of intellectual migration from Europe to North America established new connections between both sides of the Atlantic, introducing European knowledge into the American discourse while simultaneously facilitating the circulation of ideas back to Europe. The present article uses this process of “Westernisation” as a tertium comparationis for comparative reflections on the 20th-century intellectual emigration from Poland and Germany. It argues that the two émigré communities were not as structurally different as a superficial reading of the existing literature might suggest, and that the “Westernising” effects of intellectual migration could be a fruitful area for future comparative research on these two national cases.
K. J. Willms, Émigré scholars as “agents of Westernisation”? Comparative reflections on the cases of Poland and Germany, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 2025), issue 4, pp. 245–264, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.10
This article examines the emergence of academic discourse on Belarus in the Western, English-language academia from the end of the Cold War until the early 1990s. It shows how the Russian colonial narrative about Belarus was incorporated into the terminological framework of the Western, and primarily American, scholarly circulation. The primary sources are publications in Slavic and Soviet studies journals from 1945 to the late 1980s, supplemented by the memoirs of Nicholas P. Vakar and representatives of the Belarusian diaspora. Methodologically, the article adopts a decolonial approach to interrogate the conditions and processes of knowledge production. The findings indicate that from the end of World War II until at least the first post-Soviet decade, knowledge about Belarus remained fragmentary, contextual, and filtered mainly through a Russian lens; the dominance of Russian émigré scholarly networks constrained the visibility of the Belarusian diaspora. The findings confirm earlier observations regarding the Russian-centric orientation of Western Sovietology and underscore the need for terminological, methodological, and research recalibration considering contemporary developments. The analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the processes involved in decolonising knowledge about the post-Soviet region, Eastern Europe, and Belarus within Western academic discourse.
A. Saifullayeu, The name “White Russia” and the origins of Belarusian studies in the West after 1945, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 265–286, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.11
