Acadia University

Biography of Presenter: Dr. David Duke

David Duke came to Acadia from the University of Alberta on a short-term contract in 1999 and is still here, now serving as Dean of Arts. His home unit is History and Classics, where he was head of unit from 2021-2022 before moving to the dean's office, and he also teaches in Acadia's Environment and Sustainability Studies program, having served as its Coordinator from 2012 to 2018. Born near Liverpool, England, he emigrated to Canada in the early 1980s and lived in Alberta for eighteen years before "coming home" to Nova Scotia. His academic areas of expertise are the history of Russia and the USSR, the history of science, and environmental history, and he teaches in all these areas. He has also published in the fields of Central Asian politics and history, and in Canadian environmental history also. Prior to coming to Acadia he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Alberta, teaching there for a number of years, as well as teaching Canadian history in Minsk, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Belarus in the early 1990s.

Outline:

1. Introduction
   • Why history matters for understanding the current conflict.
   • Brief overview of Ukraine’s geographic and cultural position between Europe and Russia.
2. The Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654)
   • Context: Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate seeking protection.
   • Terms and implications: Autonomy vs. Russian suzerainty.
   • Long-term consequences for Ukrainian sovereignty
   • Imperial Russian Period
3. Soviet Era
   • Formation of the Ukrainian SSR. 
   • Industrialization and collectivization: Importance of Donbass and Luhansk. 
     • Coal and steel production as pillars of Soviet economy. 
   • Holodomor (1932–33): Impact on Ukrainian society.
   • WWII and post-war reconstruction: Strategic role of eastern Ukraine. 
   • 1954 and the “gifting” of Crimea by the USSR to Ukraine
4. Chernobyl Disaster (1986)
   • Location and impact on Soviet governance and Ukrainian nationalism.
5. Key Takeaways
   • Ukraine’s contested identity and strategic economic role. 
   • Seeds of tension planted during imperial and Soviet periods