Dr. Oleksa Drachewych
Lecturer

Oleksa Drachewych is a specialist in the history of the Soviet Union, international communism, and global history and international relations in the twentieth century. He is also the network editor for H-Russia. He has been at King’s since Fall 2019. He also teaches at Western University main campus and previously also taught at the University of Guelph, McMaster University, and Trent University, Durham Campus

Education

• PhD – McMaster University, 2017
• MA – Queen’s University, 2010
• BA – Western University, 2009

Teaching

Professor Drachewych was the recipient of the King’s Award for Excellence in Teaching for Part-Time Faculty in 2022.

Currently Teaching (2023-24):

• History 1404: Hitler, Stalin & Mussolini: The Totalitarian Age
• History 2179: The Two World Wars
• History 4499G: Selected Topics in European History: Russia and the West

Previously Taught:

• History 1812F: Revolutions in World History
• History 2301E: The United States, Colonial Era to the Present
• History 2403E: Europe and England in the 16^th and 17^th Century
• History 3496G: Selected Topics in European History: The Uses and Abuses of History in Russia and Eastern Europe

Research

• History of the Soviet Union
• The Global Impact of the Bolshevik Revolution
• History of Modern Europe
• History of Modern International Relations
• International communism, especially the Comintern era
• The Second World War and atrocity
• The Russo-Ukrainian War

Selected Publications

BOOKS:

Replaying the Second World War: The Soviet Inspiration for Russian Atrocities in the Russo-Ukrainian War (forthcoming with University of Toronto Press, 2024).

Co-editor of Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020).

The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions (Routledge, 2018).

SELECTED CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES:

“Broadening the Native Republic Thesis: De-siloing Comintern Histories,” Twentieth Century Communism 24 (2023): 110-131.

“The Bolsheviks’ Revolutionary International: The Idea and Establishment of the Communist International, 1914-1922,” Russian International Relations in War and Revolution, 1914-22, Book 2: Revolution and Civil War, edited by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Oleg Budnitskii, Michael Hughes & David MacLaren McDonald (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2021), 317-340.

“Great Disappointment, Shifting Opportunities: A Glimpse into the Comintern, Western European Parties and their Colonial Work in the Third Period,” Twentieth Century Communism 18 (Spring 2020): 150-173.

With Ian McKay, “Transnational Leftism? The Communist International, the National, Colonial and Racial Questions, and the Strengths and Limitations of the ‘Moscow Rules’ Paradigm,” Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions, edited by Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay (Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), 3-49.

“Race, the Comintern and Communist Parties in British Dominions, 1920-1943,” Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions, edited by Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay (Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), 247-269.

“Conclusion: Future Avenues for the Study of the Comintern and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions,” Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial and Racial Questions, edited by Oleksa Drachewych and Ian McKay (Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), 407-411. 

“Settler Colonialism and the Communist International,” Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Second Edition, edited by Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 

“The Communist Transnational? Transnational Studies and the History of the Comintern,” History Compass 17, no. 2 (Feb. 2019).

Other

Professor Drachewych has also written about the Russo-Ukrainian War for The Conversation Canada and Active History. His commentary on the Russo-Ukrainian War has been featured on CTV News, CBC News, NBC News and on radio stations across Canada.