Dr Oleksandr Polianichev
URIS Fellow HS 25
By bridging the history of tsarist rule with present-day debates on Russian imperialism, Dr. Oleksandr Polianichev’s research provides vital historical depth to contemporary discussions. It challenges prevailing assumptions about Ukrainian identity and highlights the importance of Ukraine’s imperial experience for understanding the origins of the current war.
Education and Academic Background
Oleksandr Polianichev received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and is currently a project researcher at Södertörn University in Stockholm. His work focuses on the history of imperial Russia, its colonial entanglements in the wider world, and the ambiguous position of Ukraine within that imperial framework.
URIS Fellowship in Basel
During his fellowship in Basel, Dr. Polianichev will work on an article-length project examining how Cossack settlers’ disobedience in 1861 triggered a fundamental shift in tsarist attitudes toward Ukraine. Focusing on internal correspondence among imperial officials, the project reconstructs how the so-called “Ukrainian question” was redefined – culminating in the Valuev Circular of 1863, a tsarist decree that banned most publications in the Ukrainian language and marked the start of systematic cultural repression.
While in Basel, Dr. Polianichev will also finalize his chapter to the planned Oxford Handbook of Ukrainian History, which critically traces scholarly debates on Russian colonialism and Ukraine’s contested colonial status within the multiethnic imperial formations that ruled it.
Contact: oleksandr.polianichev@unibas.chResearch project
Subversive Loyalty: Ukraine and Empire at the Foot of the Caucasus
His book project, Subversive Loyalty: Ukraine and Empire at the Foot of the Caucasus, traces the afterlife of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who were resettled by the tsarist state to wage colonial warfare in the North Caucasus. Drawing on extensive archival work in twenty repositories across four countries, the book examines how Cossack identity was refashioned through imperial service in a settler-colonial context – and how it came to embody both loyalty to the Russian state and an emergent sense of Ukrainian difference.
Dr. Polianichev’s research also explores the intersections of environment, trade, colonialism, and the natural sciences. His other project, funded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, examines the environmental history of the tsarist imperial enterprise in Georgia and on the Caucasus Black Sea coast in the 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing on the invention of the Russian Empire’s own “tropics” through the acclimatization of exotic plant species from across the globe.
Teaching at the University of Basel
Dr. Polianichev will offer a seminar titled Unraveling “Little Russia": Ukraine and Tsarist Rule, which reconsiders Ukraine’s imperial experience beyond conventional narratives. Drawing on recent scholarship in imperial history and a wide range of primary sources, the course explores how empire functioned on the ground – through social hierarchies, cultural imaginaries, and contested allegiances. It invites students to examine Ukraine not only as a subject of imperial domination, but also as a space of negotiation, complicity, and transformation.
Events & Courses in Basel
The Evergreen Tsardom: Empire and Exotic Plants in Russia’s Colonial South
Lecture by Oleksandr Polianichev (Södertörn/Basel) in the context of the research colloquium “Current Research on Eastern European History”. The preparatory texts can be found on ADAM. If you are unable to register on ADAM, please contact kai.willms@unibas.ch.
24 September 2025, 18.00–20.00h, Alte Universität Basel, Rheinsprung 9, Seminarraum –201
Unraveling "Little Russia": Ukraine and Tsarist Rule
University course by Dr. Oleksandr Polianichev during the 2025 autumn semester
18 September – 18 December 2025, on Thursdays 10.15–12.00, Department of History, University of Basel, seminar room 3
Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine is not a “real country” but merely the result of a Soviet political experiment. As Vladimir Putin has claimed on numerous occasions, “there was no Ukraine in the Russian Empire” and “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind” prior to the Bolsheviks’ rise to power. Accordingly, one of the key objectives of Russia’s war effort is to restore Ukraine to its supposedly original and authentic pre-1917 condition—Little Russia, imagined as a mere regional expression of a greater Russian national whole.
The goal of this course is to unravel the enigma of “Little Russia”—the official designation for Ukrainian lands during the imperial era—by examining Ukraine’s experience within the Russian Empire. Drawing on recent theoretical advancements in European, imperial, and global history, we will situate Ukraine within the broader imperial context in which its history unfolded, highlighting that this context was neither inherent nor natural, but was imposed through force and sustained by asymmetrical power relations.
Students will engage with imperial-era Ukraine as a lived experience and examine the longue durée of Russia’s attitudes toward Ukraine. Students will critically assess how historical perceptions and policies have evolved over time, influencing the current ideologies of Russia’s war. At the same time, they will recognize how today’s narratives, although echoing elements of the imperial period, diverge from the more ambivalent and inconsistent approaches of the tsarist era.
Upcoming Events
Russia’s war against Ukraine draws heavily on imperial-era myths that deny Ukraine’s very existence. This course from our URIS fellow Oleksandr Polianichev dismantles the construct of “Little Russia” and reveals Ukraine’s complex history within — and against — the Russian Empire.
This conference at the University of Basel examines how socialist regimes shaped the lives of ethnic, religious, linguistic, and other minorities across Europe. Scholars from around the world will discuss new perspectives on identity, equality, and everyday life under socialism.
