History and national identity construction: The great famine in Irish and Ukrainian history textbooks

This paper compares the narratives on the Famine in Irish and Ukrainian history textbooks and examines to what extent these narratives are coloured by a nationalist discourse. It argues that the story of the Famine in Irish history textbooks has changed from nationalist propaganda to a more balanced narrative, and that this change was brought about by the social transformations in the 1960s. The paper further observes that the current Ukrainian textbooks display quite a variation in the selection and interpretation of events relating to the Famine. Whereas some show a considerable nationalist bias, others present more moderate views. The trajectory of Irish narratives lends support to a theory that relates politicized historiography to the age of a state and to the consolidation of democracy. The diverse pattern of Ukrainian narratives, however, is difficult to reconcile with theories linking historiography to the wider social and political context. This pattern suggests that young states and/or states emerging from authoritarian rule need not automatically entertain uniformly nationalist or otherwise ideologically coloured discourses in the immediate post-independence period.