Mayhill Fowler

Our project, a co-authored book by Sofia Dyak and Mayhill Fowler, is A Concise History of Ukraine. The book aims for a fresh approach to the history of Ukraine, moving decisively beyond the national paradigm that has dominated historiography since the 19th century. Rather than telling the story of Ukrainians, the book explores Ukraine as a place: a dynamic constellation of connections, layers, and accumulated meanings that resist reduction to any single national narrative. We develop this method in three ways: following people and peoples across time and territory, tracing multiple centers, peripheries, and connections between them, and weaving different, often-competing historiographic threads. The result is a history not of one stateless people striving towards nationhood, but of many colliding states and state projects, peoples and communities, ideas and objects. A Concise History of Ukraine offers a kaleidoscopic view of elements that scholarship has generally examined and presented in isolation, but which, when woven together, illuminate Ukraine in a richer way, honoring its complexity and its indispensable place in the larger European story.