Dr. John Staples
Professor John Staples’ book that gives historical context for Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine received the Pritsak Book Prize Honorable Mention.
“Johann Cornies, the Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine” was runner-up for the 2024 Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies, sponsored by Harvard Ukrainian Studies and awarded by the American Association of Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.
Within the life story of Johaan Cornies, Dr. Staples, provides an important new look at Russia’s imperial policy in southern Ukraine in the first half of the 19th century, characterizing its actions as colonialism that was comparable to that of other European nations.
In Cornies, Staples reveals how colonial subjects, including Prussian Mennonites, interacted with Russian imperial policy during the first half of the 19th century. The Russian Empire had opened grasslands in southern Ukraine to agricultural settlement by new colonists. With tsarist imperial policy shifting toward Russification in the 1830s and 1840s, Cornies took on the role of mediator between the empire and Mennonite colonists.
“Through this biographical sketch, Staples demonstrates how the life and times of one individual say a great deal about Imperial Russia’s colonial policy and Ukrainian identity formation in the nineteenth century,” Professor of History Leonard G. Friesen of Wilfrid Laurier University, wrote in his review of the book.
Staples, a faculty member in the Department of History, provides valuable context into the Russian invasion of Ukraine now approaching its third anniversary.
One of the key debates surrounding the invasion of Ukraine is whether or not Russia was and is an imperialist state, Staples explained.
“Russia today claims that Ukraine is really part of Russia, and has no separate national identity, while historians studying Russian-Ukrainian relations have sometimes argued that Russia policies didn’t really constitute imperialism, but rather an expansion of the Russian core.” The book shows that Russian policies were clearly colonial in nature, Staples explains, “providing important historical context for Russia’s present imperialist war.”
“Johann Cornies, the Mennonites, and Russian Colonialism in Southern Ukraine” played a role in reshaping HIST 314: Russian Empire, a course Staples teaches. “Some of my lectures in that course are heavily shaped by my research,” Staples said. The book, published in hardcover by the University of Toronto Press, was undergoing final revisions in 2022, the year the full invasion of Ukraine began.
Students who enrolled in Staples’ HIST 495 capstone seminar in 2016 read and commented on a draft chapter of the book.
More information about the book is available here.
