David R. Marples

David Roger Marples is a Canadian historian and Distinguished University Professor at the Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta. He specializes in history and contemporary politics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Academic career

Marples received his BA Honours from the University of London in 1975, his MA in History from the University of Alberta in 1980, and Ph.D. in Economic and Social History from the University of Sheffield in 1985. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was "Collectivization of agriculture in Western Ukraine 1944-1951." He began his tenure at University of Alberta in 1991. Earlier, he was a Research Analyst for the Ukrainian Service of Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany.

Marples is President of The North American Association for Belarusian Studies and the former Director (2004-14) of the Stasiuk Program on Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. In 2014 he was a Visiting Professor at the Slavic and Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and is Associate Editor of Nationalities Papers and Canadian Slavonic Papers. At the University of Alberta he is a recipient of the J. Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (2003) and the University Cup (2008).

He is regarded as one of the leading Western authorities on the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe (social and political aspects) and Lukashenko's regime in Belarus.

As a historian Marples has written extensively on Eastern European history of the 20th Century including such major historical events as the Russian Revolution 1917-1920, Ukrainian Famine 1932-1933, Stalinism, and fall of the Soviet Union.

Marples also contributed to ongoing debates surrounding Ukrainian nationalism and nationalistic myth-making. In Feb 7, 2010 issue of The Edmonton Journal he authored an opinion piece “Hero of Ukraine linked to Jewish killings; Honorary title sure to provoke divisions among Ukrainians today.” The piece sparked a new wave of debate surrounding Bandera's figure and his role in Ukrainian history. Eventually, the most important texts of the debate were republished in Ukraine in the collection "Strasti za Banderoiu" (Passions of Bandera, 2010).

Marples has written frequently on current political matters of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine for Edmonton Journal, Kyiv Post, Moscow Times, Eurasia Daily Monitor, Open Democracy and others.

Personal Life

Marples is married to Aya Fujiwara, director of the Prince Takamado Japan Centre at the University of Alberta. He has four children, Carlton, Keelan (both from an earlier marriage), Akiko, and Kaella.

Selected bibliography

• Ukraine's Euromaidan: Analyses of a Civil Revolution in Ukraine. Co edited with Frederick V. Mills. Stuttgart Germany: ibidem Verlag and Columbia University Press, 2015. 285 pp.
• Our Glorious Past': Lukashenka's Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (Ibidem-Verlag, Hannover, Germany, 2014)
• Holodomor: Causes of the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Heritage Press, 2011)
• Russia in the Twentieth Century: the Quest for Stability (Harlow, UK: Pearson-Longman, 2011), 410 pp.
• Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2007 cloth, 2008 paperback.
• The Lukashenka Phenomenon: Elections, Propaganda, and the Foundations of Political Authority in Belarus (Trondheim, Norway: Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, No. 21, 2007).
• Prospects for Democracy in Belarus (Washington, DC: GMFUS-Heinrich Boll, 2006) [Co-edited with Joerg Forbrig and Pavol Demes]. Second revised edition published later in the same year.
• The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991 (Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education-Longman, 2004)
• Motherland: Russia in the 20th Century (London: Longman, 2002)
• Lenin's Revolution: Russia 1917-1921 (London: Wesley, Addison, and Longman, 2000)
• Belarus: A Denationalized Nation (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999)
• Nuclear Energy and Security in the Former Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997) [co-edited with Marilyn J. Young]
• Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Press; New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press; and Edmonton, AB: The University of Alberta Press, 1996).
• Stalinism in Ukraine in the 1940s (London: The Macmillan Press, 1992)
• Ukraine Under Perestroika: Ecology, Economics, and the Workers' Revolt (London: The Macmillan Press, 1991)
• The Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster (London: The Macmillan Press, 1988)
• Chernobyl & Nuclear Power in the USSR (London: The Macmillan Press, 1987).

External links

• Marples' blog
• Marples on Twitter
• Marples Facebook page