The Russo-Ukrainian War and American Geopolitics: How It All Began
Date and Time
A lecture by historian John P. LeDonne, long-time associate of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and center associate at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University.
Moderated by Megan K Duncan Smith, Programs Coordinator at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.
IN-PERSON
Casual lunch will be provided.
About the Lecture
The purpose of this presentation is to show, on the basis of published English and American archives, that the origin of the war was much more complex than it was and remains usually portrayed.
About the Speaker
Born in France of an American father and a French mother, John LeDonne graduated from the Lycée Descartes in Tours and did all his undergraduate and graduate work at Columbia University (Ph.D., 1962). With an early interest in Russian regionalism, he chose a dissertation topic on the formation of economic regions after 1917, selecting Ukraine and the Urals.
John P. LeDonne began his career teaching at a four-year college in New York. In the 1970s, he shifted his primary attention to research and publishing. He held several distinguished fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Hokkaido University (Japan), the Kennan Institute for Advanced Study, and the Russian Research Center at Harvard.
John LeDonne came to Harvard in 1984 with support from Edward Keenan and Mark Raeff and taught Imperial Russian History and Foreign Policy following the retirement of Richard Pipes. In 2010, he became a member of the Ukrainian Research Institute. Since his arrival at Harvard, John LeDonne has published 5 books and numerous articles. One third of his most recent book, Forging a Unitary State: Russia's Management of the Eurasian Space 1650-1850 (2020) deals with Ukraine. This book was awarded the 2020 Marc Raeff Prize by the Eighteenth Century Association for Russian Studies and the 2021 Prose Award for Best Book in World History by the Association of American Publishers.
This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the Ukraine Study Group: Lecture Series.
Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Hanna Leliv, HURI Events Logistics Coordinator, at hleliv@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks in advance of the session.
Watch videos of past HURI events on our YouTube Channel and subscribe to our email list to receive announcements about events and other activities.