After completing the course, the student

• is able to engage with the problems of post-Soviet ethnic identity and relations in historical and contemporary perspective.
• has learned how ethnic relations have been managed and how, in some instances, these relations have led to various forms of ethnic conflict.
• is able to discuss critically ethnicity and conflict in the post-Soviet states.

The course is based around a series of ten discussion seminars, often in case study format, for each of which

students complete a set of readings provided online. Topics include, for example, ethno-federal relations in the USSR/Russia

and post-Soviet Russian national identity; the Chechen, Osh, Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts; Tajikistan; and recent

Ukrainian events. 

Seminars and discussions (20h), student presentations and a research essay based on the presentation (5 credits).

All lectures and readings are available from the university’s Moodle server, accessed by using your student

account.

Active attendance at seminars is required. Students must prove that they can conduct independent

research and have achieved the required level of knowledge from the lectures and assigned texts through a group assignment

that is presented orally and supported by a written research essay (5 credits), to be evaluated 0-5.

Paul Fryer (GEO), M391 and Jeremy Smith (KTL), AU1146

Autumn semester

Joensuu

Language of instruction is English.