Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge: State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine

‘This book offers a necessary reappraisal of the formative Soviet decades in Ukraine and helps us understand better how Soviet culture developed across the Soviet Union… It offers a new and original angle to studying Soviet nationalities policy.’

Olena Palko

"This engaging book is a model of interdisciplinary work, undoubtedly facilitated by Fowler’s background in theatre… Her study challenges established historians who ignore cultural production, and it deserves to be read by scholars of diverse disciplines. "

Susan Costanzo

"[Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge] indeed offers an outstanding account of un-making the late imperial South East and the subsequent development of early Soviet culture in the newly created Soviet Ukraine…[it] presents an elaborate theoretical and contextual account which can help to locate the artists and their art in a specific time and a specific locality. It should be interesting for both academic and non-academic readers."

Yuliya Yurchuk

"Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge is a tour de force that will have far-reaching consequences for the way we understand Soviet national culture, and how we understand the field of Ukrainian studies itself."

Oleh Kotsyuba, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

"Mayhill Fowler’s account of Soviet Ukraine’s "beau monde" has managed to accomplish something that the central characters in her book often found elusive: telling a story that is both Soviet and Ukrainian."

Kathryn David, New York University

"Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge is a wonderful piece of work; it is beautifully written, in a witty, textured, and lively prose. Mayhill C. Fowler has a visceral – as well as an intellectual and theoretical – understanding of theatre and of audience that shows on every page of the manuscript."

Irena Makaryk, Department of English, University of Ottawa