Since 1991 post-Soviet political elites in Ukraine Russia and Belarus have been engaged in
nation- as well as state-building. They have tried to strengthen territorial sovereignty and
national security re-shape collective identities and re-narrate national histories. Former
Soviet republics have become new neighbours partners and competitors searching for
geopolitical identity in the new Eastern Europe i.e. the countries left outside the enlarged
EU. Old paradigms such as Eurasia or East Slavic civilisation have been re-invented and
politically instrumentalized in the international relations and domestic politics of these
countries. At the same time these old concepts and myths have been contested and challenged by
pro-Western elites. The main subject of this book is the construction of post-Soviet borders
and their political social and cultural implications. It focuses on the exemplary case of the
Ukrainian-Russian border approaching it as a social construct and a discursive phenomenon. The
book shows how the symbolic meanings of and narratives on this border contribute to national
identity formation and shape the images of the neighbouring countries as the Other thereby
shedding new light on the role of border disputes between Ukraine and Russia in bilateral
relations in EU neighbourhood politics and in domestic political conflicts. The study also
addresses border making on the regional level focusing on the cross-border cooperation between
Kharkiv and Belgorod and on the dilemmas of a Euroregion in absence of Europe. Finally it
reflects the everyday experiences of the residents of near-border villages and shows how
national and local identities are performed at and transformed by the new border.
