National Questions: Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe - Paperback

by Alexander Motyl (Author)

National Questions consists of fifteen formerly published articles on nations and nationalism by Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University - Newark. Combining social science with the multidisciplinarity of area studies, Motyl discusses the malleability and modernity of national identity, the attractions and limits of social constructivist imaginings of nations, the impact of national discourses, binary morality, and historical narratives on interpretations of the Holocaust and the Holodomor, the relationship between liberalism, nationalism, and fascism, and the role of national identity and nationalism in Eastern Europe in general and the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia in particular. Throughout, Motyl questions conventional wisdom, exposes its inconsistencies and weaknesses, and encourages readers to rethink their views in light of conceptual clarity, theoretical rigor, elementary logic, and empirical evidence.

Author Biography

Alexander J. Motyl is professor of political science at Rutgers University - Newark, writer, and painter. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in 1992-1998 and of the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers University - Newark in 1999-2008. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, he is the author of Ukraine Vs. Russa, Pidsumy Imperii, Puti Imperii, Imperial Ends, Revolutions, Nations, Empires, Dilemmas of Independence, Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality, Will The Non Russians Rebel?, The turn of the Right, and the editor of over ten volumes. He is, together with Bohdan Klid, the editor of The Holodomor Reader; and, together with Ksenya Kiebuzinski, the editor of The Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941. His novels include Whiskey Priest, Who Killed Andrei Warhol, Flippancy, The Jew who was Ukrainian, My Orchidia, Sweet Snow, Fall River, Vovochka, Ardor, and Putin's Last Stand. His first collection of Poetry, Vanishing Points, appeared in 2016; his second, Worries, is forthcoming.