David R. Marples
Contributor
Professor of History, University of Alberta. Author of Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine; Belarus: A Denationalized Nation; and Motherland: Russia in the Twentieth Century.
Primary Contributions (3)
Yulia Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian businesswoman and politician who served as prime minister of Ukraine (2005, 2007–10). Tymoshenko’s family lineage has been reported variously as Ukrainian, Russian, Latvian, and Jewish. She married Oleksandr Tymoshenko in 1979 and gave birth to a daughter the…
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Publications (3)
Russia in the Twentieth Century: The quest for stability (August 2010)
The history of Russia, as the natural successor to the Soviet Union, is of crucial importance to understanding why communism ultimately lost out to Western democracy and the free market system. David Marples presents a balanced overview of 20th century Russian history and shows that although contemporary Russia has retained many of the practices and memories of the Soviet period, it is not about to revert back to the Soviet example.
Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine (August 2007)
In 2004, world attention was focused on Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution', which appeared to herald a new and promising era for independent Ukraine. Though such hopes proved over-optimistic there is no question that Ukraine has embarked on the process of nation building. But a new nation needs a national history and in this sphere, there has been sustained debate over the interpretations of the recent past. David R. Marples examines these narratives through a wide variety of books, scholarly and newspaper...
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The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991 (April 2004)
Why did the Soviet Union collapse in 1991? The collapse of the Soviet Union has widely been seen as the result of the arms race and Cold War, and the failure of the Soviet side to keep pace with new technology. This book argues that the disintegration was mainly a result of two interrelated factors: the rise of the Soviet national republics, and the manipulation of the new Russian presidency by Boris Yeltsin in what became a direct power struggle between Yeltsin and the Soviet leader, Gorbachev....
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