In her new work, ‘The Multiethnic Soviet Union and its Demise‘ (Bloomsbury, 2022), Professor O’Keeffe is the first to offer a concise, accessible overview of the evolution of the Soviet Union as a multiethnic empire. With a focus on individual life stories, it explores how the diverse peoples of the Soviet Union experienced the potential advantages and disadvantages of Soviet ethnic politics. It also explains how and why the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 along markedly national lines, leading to the birth of a variety of new nation-states – including Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
