Getting history wrong is an essential factor in the formation of a nation,' wrote Ernest Renan, basing this observation on his analysis of the nation-building experience in nineteenth-century Europe.1
Many historians today tend to agree with Renan's statement and are doing their best to 'get history right' as they search for alternatives to national history. More often than not they face an uphill battle in that regard, both within and outside their profession.
On the one hand, the influence of globalization in North America and European integration on the other side of the Atlantic have certainly shaken the old belief in nationality as the only legitimate principle for organizing the history of humankind. The retreat of primordialism in nationality studies and the demonstration of the temporal and constructed nature of national identities, as well as the interpretation of nationalities as imagined communities, further undermined the legitimacy of the nationality principle in historical writing. On the other hand, most historians continue to practise national history, and the governments of nation-states continue to encourage the use of history for purposes of patriotic education. An international group of scholars currently working on a five-year program of the European Science Foundation entitled 'Representations of the Past: The Writing of National Histories in Europe' observed that the rise of radical right-wing and separatist movements in many West European states 'has put national history center stage.' They also pointed out that, 'if anything, the proliferation of new nation states in eastern Europe after 1989 brought about a renewed interest in national histories in many of the former Communist states.'2
Asking historians in Eastern Europe to abandon the national approach to history after decades of suppression of national narratives by the communist authorities may be rather like asking Leopold von Ranke to tone down his nationalist and statist rhetoric after the unification of Germany. Still, one can approach East European historians with much more hope today than could have been mustered in dealing with German and Italian historians in the second half of the nineteenth century.
For one thing, writing traditional national history today means contributing to the isolationism and provincialism of East European historiography imposed by decades of existence behind the Iron Curtain. The new nations of Eastern Europe want to be part of a united Europe, while their younger historians want to be part of the larger European and world community of historians.But how is one to overcome the deficiencies of present-day writing on the history of Eastern Europe - deficiencies often caused by decades of totalitarian rule in that part of the world and general indifference on the part of Western historians to the history of nations without a state of their own? Here I shall discuss the possibilities of rewriting, reshaping, and restructuring East European historical narratives, focusing on the history of Ukraine - an entity defined for the purposes of this essay primarily in territorial terms. I shall start by discussing the formation of the national paradigm of Ukrainian history and considering its pluses and minuses. I shall then look at alternatives to national history. They include rewriting the Ukrainian historical narrative along the lines of multiethnic and local history, as well as applying methods employed in transnational, regional, and international history. Finally, I shall discuss the prospects for treating Ukrainian history in the context of broader supranational areas, including East Central Europe and Eurasia. By analysing recent developments in the field, I hope to indicate the direction of future research on the history of the region.