Acknowledgments
The idea for this project started with a relatively simple question posed to us while on a roundtable discussing a book project on twenty-five years of transitional justice in Central and Eastern Europe, namely “what about states in the former Soviet Union?” At that moment, we didn't have much to add to the discussion, as little had been written about transitional justice attempts in the former Soviet Union (FSU). The relative dearth of measures in the FSU and outright rejection of accountability measures in many regional states had left this topic underexplored. In many ways, the dog that didn't bark had largely been ignored by both postcommunist and transitional justice scholars. This struck us as problematic. Both the absence and the instrumentalization of measures, not just the implementation of measures, seemed important areas to study, especially as the FSU was approaching its own twenty-fifth anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR. Hence, the idea for this project was hatched from one deceptively simple question.
Tackling this research question proved more challenging than its genesis. We are very pleased that we were able to assemble a group of scholars from diverse research backgrounds and perspectives, willing to collectively dive into this research lacuna. Everyone was empirically challenged to engage with new concepts and cases, or apply narrower research agendas to the broad FSU space. Contributors learned about unfamiliar countries in order to apply their knowledge of transitional justice, or, alternatively, learned about different transitional justice measures in order to evaluate their particular country case(s). We are very grateful for the willingness of many authors to stretch beyond their comfort zones and bring their particular areas of expertise to bear on this collaborative inquiry. We have learned a lot from this opportunity to work with them.
There are many people to thank in the process of bringing a book to fruition. In particular, our editor John Berger at Cambridge University Press was an enthusiastic supporter of this project from the very beginning. We have appreciated his support, advice, and patience as we pulled it together, as well as his enthusiasm for advancing the field of transitional justice in novel ways theoretically and empirically. We also want to thank Nadya Nedelsky and Brian Grodsky for enthusiastically supporting this project, and the anonymous reviewers for kindly allowing it to go ahead.
Personally, Cynthia is most appreciative to have worked with Lavinia on this project. Lavinia is not only an intellectual power-house, but she is a detail-oriented, administrative dynamo, capable of providing thoughtful, timely feedback. Her sense of humor helped pull this project over many a hurdle. Cynthia feels so fortunate that our chance coffee table conversation morphed into this project. In turn, Lavinia is no less grateful for Cynthia's willingness to put up with her hectic administrative duties that often called her attention for days, even weeks, at a time and slowed down progress for this manuscript. Indeed, this volume would not have seen its final stages without the unwavering dedication Cynthia demonstrated in contacting contributors, keeping track of revisions and revisions of revisions, unifying the referencing style, and bringing all chapters, tables, references, and blurbs together. Lavinia also wants to thank Lucian and Luc Turcescu for their love and support, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for generously financing her research on various transitional justice themes.
Despite our best efforts, there is much that remains unexplored in this volume. Not all FSU cases are covered, not all measures are accounted for, and the impact of newly implemented measures remains to be seen. We are hopeful that this volume starts a conversation about the presence and absence of transitional justice in the FSU for others to build upon.
