History is not an accident: three years of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine

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History is not an accident, and Russia’s war against Ukraine is not an isolated “local” conflict. It is part of a broader web of Russia’s imperial/ colonial violence. Three years of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine have destroyed lives, environments, and cultural heritage, and have been accompanied by Russia’s other imperial interventions, taking different forms across various regions in a large part of the world.
Presenters: Maia Barkaia, Erica Marat, Iryna Zamuruieva. Moderator: Epp Annus

About the speakers:
Maia Barkaia is an associate professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). She holds a B.A. in Oriental Studies, an M.A. in Modern Indian History, and a Ph.D. in Gender Studies. These academic backgrounds have shaped her research and teaching interests, which center on Postcolonial and Gender Studies. Her work explores themes such as Imperial Entanglements, Modernity, and Inequalities in the Caucasus and Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries. She is also the co-editor with Alisse Waterston of Gender in Georgia: Feminist Perspectives on Culture, Nation, and History in the South Caucasus, published by Berghahn Books (2017, 2021).

Erica Marat is a Professor at the College of International Security Affairs of the National Defense University. She has authored several books, including most recently Transformative Violence: When Routine Cruelty Sparks Historic Mobilization (Oxford University Press 2024). She is currently working on a project on decolonial developments and processes in Central and North Asia and South Caucasus. She is also engaged in a research project on China’s and Russia’s provision of public services for illiberal governments in 15 countries across five continents.

Iryna Zamuruieva explores human-environmental relationships through photography and writing. Iryna’s current focus is on the environmental history and political ecology of rapeseed cultivation in central Ukraine. Most recently Iryna has been an artist in residence at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow and a research fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and worked on climate and land policy at Verture in Edinburgh.

The event is being organized by RUTA Association for Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies in Global Conversation & Tallinn University, Institute of Humanities. The event is funded by the project PRG2592 “Memory and Environment: The Intersection of Fast and Slow Violence in Transnational European Literatures.”

16:00 – 17:30 EET (GMT +2) / Tallinn & Kyiv time, ZOOM
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