Celebrating Borderlands in a Wider Europe: Nations and Identities in Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia

The book addresses Estonian, Ukrainian and Georgian identities that develop against the background of the neo-imperial policies of Russia and EU normative power projection. With the decreasing explanatory value of the -post-Soviet- frame, the authors propose the concept of borderlands for bringing together a group of countries located at the intersection of different cultural, religious, ethnic and civilizational flows and systems. It is argued that for borderlands nation-building envisages strategies of meaning-making aimed at self-identification, consolidation and integration, along with strategies of adjusting to practical tools and mechanisms of governance generated and shared by Europe. Performative cultural and sportive events, such as Euro 2012 in Lviv, Song and Dance Festival 2014 in Tallinn, and Youth Olympic Games 2015 in Tbilisi are at the centre of each of these case studies.