Rethinking Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine: A Methodological Reading of John R. Staples’ Study on Johann Cornies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2026.02.217Keywords:
American historiography on Ukraine, colonization of Ukraine, settler colonialism, Mennonites, Molochna colonies, Khortytsia colonies, Protestantism, Russian imperialism.Abstract
The aim of this review is to introduce the book by the American historian J. Staples to Ukrainian readers and scholars. The study examines Johann Cornies, one of the leading figures of the Mennonite colonies established on Ukrainian lands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cornies’s life and activities formed an integral part of the broader history of Ukraine during this period. It is emphasized that a key feature of Staples’s research is his effort to interpret the region’s history through the concept of settler colonialism — a framework that has previously been applied mainly to the history of states on the American continent.
References
Dyck, H.L., Toews, J.B. & Staples, J. (2004). Nestor Makhno and the Eichenfeld Massacre: A Civil War Tragedy in a Ukrainian Mennonite Village. Waterloo: Pandora Press.
Dyck, H.L., Staples, J.R. & Epp, I.I. (Eds.). (2015). Johann Cornies, The Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, Vol. 1. 1812—1835. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442622371
Dyck, H.L., Staples, J.R. & Epp, I.I. (Eds.). (2020). Johann Cornies, The Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Vol. 2. 1836—1842. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487538743
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