The Family in History, History in the Family: National Identity in Nineteenth-century Kyiv and Immigration Politics in West Germany after 1955

In two new books, Fabian Baumann and Lauren Stokes examine the past through the lens of family structures and relations. In Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2023), Baumann investigates the origins of Russian and Ukrainian nationalisms through the story of the Shul’gin family (in Ukrainian, Shul’hyn). Baumann argues that becoming Russian or Ukrainian in tsarist-era Kyiv was a deliberate choice, and that family life was a crucible of nationalist socialization. Likewise, in Fear of the Family: Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany (Oxford UP, 2022), Lauren Stokes demonstrates that guest workers from Turkey, Yugoslavia, Greece, and elsewhere were savvy in challenging a division between work life and family life that the West German state crafted to limit family migration. Baumann is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Heidelberg. Stokes is Associate Professor of History at Northwestern University. Stephen V. Bittner is Special Topics Editor at Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and Professor of History at Sonoma State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices