This collection of essays analyses the changes that have taken place in the post-Soviet space since 1991.

This is the fourth volume prepared by the initiators of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions (3R) project ongoing at the College of Europe in Natolin since 2016. The present collection of essays analyses the changes that have taken place in the post-Soviet space since 1991 and which have determined both the process of democratization and the return to authoritarianism in the new republics. Since 2022, researchers gathered around the 3R project have been asked: Had there been no revolutions and mass pro-democratic protest in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, would there also be no war today? Answers to this and similarly intriguing questions are provided by: Marek Cichocki, Kinga Anna Gajda, Garry Kasparov, Magdalena Lachowicz, Wojciech Michnik, Georges Mink, Justyna Oldzka, Iwona Reichardt, Anton Saifullayeu, Kacper Waczyk, Andrew Wilson and Kataryna Wolczuk.

Autorentext

Butterwick, Richard - Chairholder of the European Civilization Chair at the College of Europe in Natolin, where the Three Ukrainian Revolutions (3R) project was carried out. He is also Professor of Polish-Lithuanian History at University College London and Principal Historian of the Polish History Museum in Warsaw. His research and publications concentrate on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Age of Enlightenment. Awards include the Polish Historical Society's Pro historia Polonorum Prize for the book The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1733-1795: Light and Flame (2020). Cichocki, Marek - Professor at the College of Europe in Natolin and Professor of International Relations at the Collegium Civitas in Warsaw. He specialises in international relations, German European politics, intellectual and political history of Europe. He lectured at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the Warsaw University (1995-2015), Postgraduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences (2001-2003) and at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome (2021-2022). He is also editor-in-chief of the Teologia Polityczna yearly. He has authored books, essays, articles and dissertations on international relations and history. Gajda, Kinga Anna - Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of European Studies at the Jagiellonian University. She is a professor of cultural studies, and holds a doctorate in literary studies. Her research interests include memory and heritage, with a particular focus on Central and Eastern Europe in the post-communist era. She is an author and editor of numerous publications as well as a member of the editorial teams of The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Civic and Political Studies; The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies; The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Educational Studies and The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social and Community Studies. Kasparov, Gary - Former world chess champion. His famous matches against the IBM super-computer Deep Blue in 1996-97 were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream. He has been a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal since 1991 and is a frequent commentator on politics and human rights. In 2013 he was named a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford-Martin School. Kasparov's book How Life Imitates Chess on decision-making is available in over 20 languages. He is the author of two acclaimed series of chess books: My Great Predecessors and Modern Chess. Lachowicz, Magdalena - Assistant Professor at the Department of Eastern Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznä, Poland. Her research interests include: ethnic relations and regional movements in the former Soviet republics, the history of the Soviet Union, and civil society movements in contemporary Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Michnik, Wojciech - Assistant Professor of International Relations and Security Studies at the Jagiellonian University and the Transatlantic Project Coordinator for the Central and South-East Europe Programme at London School of Economics IDEAS at the Jagiellonian University and contributing editor for New Eastern Europe. He was a 2023-24 Fulbright-NATO Security Studies Fellow at the University of Arizona. In 2019 he was the Eisenhower Defense Fellow at NATO Defense College in Rome. Previously he served as a Fulbright visiting scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute (in 2015-2016) and as a foreign and security policy analyst at the Department of Americas, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland (2014). He holds a PhD in International Relations from the Jagiellonian University. His main research interests include Transatlantic security, particularly NATO-Russia relations, and Great Power competition in the Middle East. Mink, Georges - Permanent Professor at the College of Europe in Natolin. From 2019 to 2023 he was the Chairholder of the Chair of European History and Civilization. He is a sociologist and political scientist, specialising in Central and Eastern Europe. He has been one of the main two leaders of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions (3R) research project which was carried out by the College of Europe in Natolin from 2016 to 2024. He is Director Emeritus of Research at the Institut des Sciences Sociales et du Politique (CNRS - France), Université de Paris X, Nanterre and former President of the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES), 2015-2021. His research and publications - more than 250 - include books, chapters in the collective publications, articles and expert papers, and are dedicated to political systems, the sociopolitical evolution of these regimes, the conversion of ex-communist elites in Central and Eastern Europe and the Europeanisation of national political systems. He was also a co-editor of the first two volumes of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions publication prepared in the framework of the 3R research project and published by Ibidem. Among his recent books is also La Pologne au coeur de l'Europe, de 1914 à aujourd'hui, histoire politique et conflits de mémoire, published by Buchet-Chastel in 2015 (French version) and in 2017 (Polish version). Ol dzka, Justyna - Lecturer at the Faculty of History of the University of Biäystok, Poland, and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Eastern Studies Team. She is an expert at the Academic Center for Strategic Analysis and a member of the international analytical group "Belarus-Ukraine-Region" operating at the Center for Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw. Her research interests focus on the issues of legitimisation and de-legitimisation of leadership in the post-Soviet area, the role of propaganda and disinformation in non-democracies, and the theory and practice of social engineering. Reichardt, Iwona - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the New Eastern Europe journal at the Jan Nowak-Jezioräski College of Eastern Europe in Wroc aw. She holds a PhD in political science from the Jagiellonian University where she now teaches courses on Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 2015 she has been a member of the Three Ukrainian Revolutions (3R) research team at the College of Europe in Natolin. She co-edited the three volume publication titled Three Revolutions. Mobilisation and Change in Contemporary Ukraine (2019-2022). Saifullayeu, Anton - Adjunct Professor at the University of Warsaw. He holds a PhD in humanities from the University of Warsaw. His area of academic interests include postcolonial theory, cultural anthropology of post-Soviet Eastern Europe, theory of historiography, and Belarusian history of ideas. He is an author of numerous academic articles and a book on post-colonial historiographies titled Postkolonialne historiografie which was published in Poland in 2020. Wäczyk, Kacper - Analyst focusing on Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and …