Ukrainian Historography of Perestroika

Abstract

The article deals with the main trends and debatable issues in the Ukrainian historiography of Perestroika. The author establishes a connection between the prevailing ideas about the place of Soviet statehood in the history of Ukraine and the role of Perestroika in it. The totalitarian paradigm dominant in Ukrainian historiography is analyzed, according to which: 1) the reforms were unable to correct the Soviet communism whose collapse was imminent; 2) as a result of the collapse of the Soviet empire the peoples were given the opportunity to create national states and return to the “road of civilization” — to a market economy based on private property. The concepts of the system crisis of the Soviet model of socialism and the transformation of perestroika as a “revolution from above” into the national revolution during the Ukrainian national revival are considered. The article pays a particular attention to the coverage of the role of Ukraine in the disintegration of the USSR in the historiography since the position of the situational union of sovereign communists and nationalists at the time of the conclusion of the Belovezhsky agreements rested on the will of the people — the AllUkrainian referendum. Russia and Belarus did not conduct referendums on independence. It has been established that Ukrainian historians have concentrated on studying certain aspects of Perestroika, mainly related to Ukraine. They concern the Ukrainian national, linguistic, cultural and ecclesiastical revival, the activities of the national-democratic opposition. Many aspects of Perestroika (economic reforms, foreign policy, social history, the history of everyday life) in Ukraine are almost not researched at all.