Zdeněk Mlynář and Mikhail Gorbachev: A half-century dialogue on real socialism and its reform
Journal: OpenstarTs (Univeristy of Trieste https://www.units.it/)
Year: 2025

Historians have questioned Ukraine’s role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, offering conflicting assessments of the extent to which Kyiv’s disengagement influenced the Soviet state’s final fate. Despite the wealth of historiographical reflection on Ukraine’s significance in the collapse of the Ussr, studies on the reception of perestroika in Ukraine and on Gorbachev’s attitude toward the republic are scarce. This essay aims to fill this gap by examining memoirs, speeches by the general sec