The title of the edited volume refers to a term and a historical region, and both of them remain opaque in the course of the reading. Regarding the plurality and historical changes to “Eastern Europe,” a specification would have been useful to the readers, especially as most of the thirteen contributions address Ukrainian subject matters. These are rounded up by individual case studies on Poland, Lithuania, and Russia. A very short introduction formulates a few questions about the possible meaning of the term “official history” in the context of stateless nations or self-proclaimed republics, and here again the contemporary history of Ukraine seems to be the reference point. Unfortunately, these questions do not evolve into specific themes to be explored in the volume. The nature of the connection between the case studies, arranged in four chapters in the volume, remains unclear.

Taken individually, the case studies are valuable readings, for instance the fine contribution of the Slavist Eric Aunoble in the first chapter, titled “Constructing official histories,” about the Ukrainian branch of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute and its activities in the first years after 1945. After analyzing several examples, Aunoble concludes that a typical feature of historical writing from the period was not “implementing official history” (85), but its professionalization. The case study by Estelle Bunout, which draws from a differentiated source-based analysis of the activities of the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw from 1945 until 1965, goes in a similar direction. She argues for a “relative diversity of official historiography” (102) and shows how contemporary analyses of international politics integrated older political stances from the interwar period. The historian Korinne Amacher discusses Russian history textbooks from 1992 until 2019 and documents various phases regarding the plurality of viewpoints manifested in this type of literature, even after the more authoritarian turn in Russian politics since 2013–16. Victoriia Serhiienko addresses the Illustrated History of Ukraine by Mikhallo Hrushevs΄kyi, published in 1911, but leaves open its relation to official history, whatever that means, while Andrii Portnov presents an overview of Soviet Ukrainian historiography and emphasizes its heterogeneous and dynamic character (63).

Miriam Kruse discusses a novel by Boris Gorbatov, “Taras's Family” (1943), for which the author had received the Stalin Prize. The subject here is the stereotypical female roles on the home front, in stark contrast with the real traumatic experience of many women. The insightful contribution by Oleksandr Zabirko on Novorossiia shows how monuments, school textbooks, and literary works by Russian and regional artists attempted to construe the territory of Novorossiia “as an antemurale [bulwark] of the Russian world” (160) and “a new geopolitical reality in the post-Soviet space” (157).

In the section on “(Re-)inventing memorial spaces and Euromaidan, the Donbas War, and its Trans-border dimensions” Tatiana Zhurzhenko from the University of Vienna provides an extensive overview of the monumental commemoration of St. Volodymyr / St. Vladimir in Ukraine and Russia, before and after Euromaidan. She documents the diverse meanings of the religious figure, incorporated in the nationalization of historical discourses in both countries. Paul Zalewski and Oleksandra Provozin analyze public debates from 2015 on the establishment of a monument dedicated to Archbishop Andrei Sheptyts΄kyi on St. George's Square in L΄viv, displaying a conflict between different social groups and generations. Živilė Mikailienė explores the case of the Lukiškės Square, the former Lenin Square in the center of Vilnius that used to feature a monument dedicated to Lenin. After the end of the Soviet regime, the renaming of the square and the removal of the statue precipitated public debates on Lithuanian history and dealing with the Soviet past. According to Mikailienė, the fact that no consensus has yet emerged on the replacement of the Lenin statue illustrates the lack of social consensus in coming to terms with recent history: “there is no solid, coherent historical narrative and society is divided into several camps” (262).

In the last section, titled “The Euromaidan, the Donbas War, and its Trans-Border Dimensions,” Alexandr Osipian discusses the meanings and frictions of memory politics in Russia and Ukraine after 1991 and highlights how the insurgents in eastern Ukraine legitimized their actions in 2014–15 by representing the new Ukrainian government as “the ideological descendant(s) of WWII fascists” (290). Felix Ackermann shows the impact of Euromaidan on public debates on history in Lithuania. He concludes that the experience of the loss of sovereignty in the past and the perceived threat of Russia in the present have narrowed the space for critical debates, particularly on Lithuanian cooperation in the Holocaust. Finally, Ursula Woolley explores the manifold stances in Dnipro on local and national history, particularly those after 2014. She discusses the role of influential local intellectuals (Dmytro Iavornyts΄kyi) and major public history initiatives (the Menorah Centre), the role of marginalized tropes about Dnipro (the Makhno movement), and those receiving much public attention (on the commemoration of Leonid Brezhnev).

Scholars with an interest in current historical debates in Ukraine will find the contributions in this volume well-researched and innovative. They would have deserved a more extensive introduction on how the various genres of public art and literature, mainstream and popular historical writing and the flagship institutions of Soviet political and historical writing fit or do not fit under the label “official history.” One possibility could have been to discuss how the professionalization of historical writing fitted in the ideological mainstream. Another perspective emerging from the case studies involves more public aspects that go hand in hand with broadening the subjects and social contexts of historically oriented art, literature, and historical writing. Such an angle could have occasioned further thoughts on processes of democratization, as well as signs of populism in the recent developments. Having various studies from various countries and regions could have triggered perspectives on the benefit of comparisons and the explorations of entanglements. However, the editors have stopped short of expanding on the term and it is telltale that many contributions do well without mentioning it.