Reimagining Europe? Youth Narratives and Perceptions in Ukraine and the Baltic States

In the problematic triangle of Ukraine-EU- Russia relations, youth-those born after the watershed events in 1991 and for whom the USSR is a chapter in a history textbook-hold the potential for both change and continuity in the negotiation of past, present, and future. This article serves as an introduction to our Special Issue exploring what youth narratives can tell us about the possibility of change 30 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We ask: What can we learn about movement through and with time, at a historic moment at which uncertainty and crises characterize the international system? To answer this question, the Special Issue generates findings about how young people (and some news media) think they are experiencing events as conditioned by this historical intersection. We argue that young people put themselves in different contexts and as such have very different views of their own country and its place in the world and Europe.