HOW POST-SOVIET COUNTRIES CAN OVERCOME THE COLONIAL PAST: THE UKRAINIAN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The article examines, through the Ukrainian case, the occupation nature of the Soviet communist regime and its colonial exploitation of the union republics from the 1920s to 1991. Using principles of historicism, systemic analysis and historical‑genetic and typological methods, the authors reconstruct how the Bolshevik center subordinated Ukraine’s political institutions and economic administration, extracted resources through centralized planning, and imposed a ruling elite largely recruited and controlled from Moscow. The study integrates classic and recent scholarship (Volobuiev; Mazlakh & Shahrai; Vynnychenko; Motyl; Shporluk; Hrynevych) and primary materials to argue that Soviet Ukraine functioned de facto as a colonially dependent territory. Special attention is paid to demographic engineering, Russification, and the Holodomor’s long‑term effects, which reshaped regional identity and undermined state‑building. The paper contends that a coherent historical policy is an essential instrument for overcoming the colonial legacy in post‑Soviet states: beyond renaming spaces, it requires confronting uncomfortable questions about the imperial character of the USSR and liberating public memory from imperial narratives. Such a policy is presented as a prerequisite for consolidating national sovereignty and international subjectivity in the post‑Soviet space.