Ukrainian Voices – serie

In early 2014, sparked by an assault by their government on peaceful students, Ukrainians rose up against a deeply corrupt, Moscow-backed regime. Initially demonstrating under the banner of EU integration, the Maidan protesters proclaimed their right to a dignified existence; they learned to organize, to act collectively, to become a civil society. Most prominently, they established a new Ukrainian identity: territorial, inclusive, and present-focused with powerful mobilizing symbols. Driven by an urban “bourgeoisie” that rejected the hierarchies of industrial society in favor of a post-modern heterarchy, a previously passive post-Soviet country experienced a profound social revolution that generated new senses: “Dignity” and “fairness” became rallying cries for millions. Europe as the symbolic target of political aspiration gradually faded, but the impact (including on Europe) of Ukraine’s revolution remained. When Russia invaded—illegally annexing Crimea and then feeding continuous military conflict in the Donbas—, Ukrainians responded with a massive volunteer effort and touching patriotism. In the process, they transformed their country, the region, and indeed the world. This book provides a chronicle of Ukraine’s Maidan and Russia’s ongoing war, and puts forth an analysis of the Revolution of Dignity from the perspective of a participant observer.

In early 2014, sparked by an assault by their government on peaceful students, Ukrainians rose up against a deeply corrupt, Moscow-backed regime. Initially demonstrating under the banner of EU integration, the Maidan protesters proclaimed their right to a dignified existence; they learned to organize, to act collectively, to become a civil society. Most prominently, they established a new Ukrainian identity: territorial, inclusive, and present-focused with powerful mobilizing symbols. Driven by an urban “bourgeoisie” that rejected the hierarchies of industrial society in favor of a post-modern heterarchy, a previously passive post-Soviet country experienced a profound social revolution that generated new senses: “Dignity” and “fairness” became rallying cries for millions. Europe as the symbolic target of political aspiration gradually faded, but the impact (including on Europe) of Ukraine’s revolution remained. When Russia invaded—illegally annexing Crimea and then feeding continuous military conflict in the Donbas—, Ukrainians responded with a massive volunteer effort and touching patriotism. In the process, they transformed their country, the region, and indeed the world. This book provides a chronicle of Ukraine’s Maidan and Russia’s ongoing war, and puts forth an analysis of the Revolution of Dignity from the perspective of a participant observer.

The essays in this book explore the major developments, both domestic and international, that shaped the first quarter-century of Ukraine’s independence: the simultaneous construction of a nation-state and the privatization of its economy; a formal democratization of the political process alongside the capture of state institutions by big business oligarchs; their efforts to gain social acceptance at home while maneuvering between competing Russian, EU, and American projects to hegemonize the region; the impact of the financial crises of 1997 and 2008 on Ukrainian society and the national economy’s place in the world market; the growing inequality of society, the mass revolts in 2004 and 2014 against corruption and injustice; and the beginning of Russian military intervention in Ukraine.

Nationalism, national identity, and ethnicity are complex social phenomena worldwide and especially so in post-Soviet Ukraine. This monograph explores the causes and conditions of post-communist nationalist revivals focusing on the re-emergence of Cossack movements in Russia and Ukraine since the late 1980s. The study explores how different theories of nationalist movements underpinned different national policies and, ultimately, different socially constructed realities that led to the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

This collection of texts by writers, historians, philosophers, political analysts, and opinion leaders combines reflections on Ukrainian history and analyses of the present with outlines of conceptual ideas and life stories. The authors present a multi-faceted image of Ukraine’s memory and reality touching upon topics from the Holodomor to Maidan, from the Russian aggression to cultural diversity, from the depth of the past to the complexity of the present. The contributors include Ola Hnatiuk, Irena Karpa, Haska Shyyan, Larysa Denysenko, Hanna Shelest, Andriy Kulakov, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Serhii Plokhy, Yuri Andrukhovych, Andriy Kurkov, Andrij Bondar, Vakhtang Kebuladze, Volodymyr Rafeenko, Alim Aliev, Leonid Finberg, and Andriy Portnov. The book was initially published by Internews Ukraine and UkraineWorld with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

Our Others: Stories of Ukrainian Diversity is an award-winning exploration of both the histories and personal stories of fourteen ethnic minority groups living within the boundaries of present-day Ukraine: Czechs and Slovaks, Meskhetian Turks, Swedes, Romanians, Hungarians, Roma, Jews, ‘Liptaks’, Gagauzes, Germans, Vlachs, Poles, Crimean Tatars, and Armenians. Based on a combination of academic research, fieldwork, and interviews, Olesya Yaremchuk’s literary reportages paint realistic, thoughtful, and historically informed depictions of how these various groups arrived in Ukraine and how they have fared within the country’s borders. Accompanied by vivid photographs that bring the reportages to life, Our Others is in some respects a chronicle of the myriad voluntary and forced migrations that have rolled through Ukraine for centuries. Simultaneously, the book offers a tender—and timely—study of the little islands of cultural diversity in Ukraine that have survived the Soviet steamroller of planned linguistic, cultural, and religious unification and that deserve acknowledgement in Ukraine’s broader cultural identity. The volume’s contributors are: Marta Barnych (contributing co-author), Anton Semyzhenko (contributing co-author), Ostap Slyvynsky (foreword)

This collection of essays reflects the personal experience of a Ukrainian intellectual engaged, since his Soviet-time youth, in a painstaking but fascinating process of the both cultural and political ‘Europeanization’ of his country. The title refers, ironically, to the notorious Chancellor Metternich’s quip that Asia presumably begins at the eastern fence of his garden (or, as another apocryphal version maintains, at the eastern end of the Viennese Landstrasse). This is a story of both exclusion and inclusion, of walls and fences, but also of a longing for freedom and a quest for solidarity. It is a book on different ways of being a ‘European’—at both the collective and individual level,—despite various challenges or, perhaps, thanks to them.

This volume focuses on political and social expressions in contemporary art of Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. It explores the transformations that art in Ukraine and the Baltic states has undergone since their independence in 1991, discussing how the conflicts and challenges of the last three decades have impacted the reconsideration of identity and fostered resistance of culture against economic and political crises. It analyzes connections between the past and the present as seen by the artists in these countries and looks at their visions of the future. Contemporary Ukrainian art portrays various perspectives, addressing issues from controversial historical topics to the present military conflict in the East of the country. Baltic art speaks out against the erasure of past historical traumas and analyzes the pertinence of its cultural scene to the European community. The contributions in this collection open a discussion of whether there is a single paradigm that describes the contemporary processes of art production in Ukraine and the Baltic countries. With contributions by Ieva Astahovska, Svitlana Biedarieva, Kateryna Botanova, Olena Martynyuk, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Lina Michelkevičė, Margaret Tali, and Jessica Zychowicz.

In his timely study, Andrii Demartino investigates the multitude of techniques how social media can be used to advance an aggressive foreign policy, as exemplified by the Russian Federation’s operation to annex Crimea in 2014. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Demartino traces the implementation of a series of Russian measures to create channels and organisations manipulating public opinion in the Ukrainian segment of the internet and on platforms such as Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, LiveJournal, and Twitter. Addressing the pertinent question of how much the operation to annex Crimea was either improvised or planned, he draws attention to Russia’s ad-hoc actions in the sphere of social media in 2014. Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods of Russia’s influence operations, the book proposes a number of counterstrategies to prevent such “active measures.” These propositions can serve to improve Ukraine’s national information policy as well as help to develop adequate security concepts of other states.

The Western understanding of what happened in Ukraine during World War II has been shaped by historical and ideological constructs created in the Kremlin. The Ukrainian specificity has been dissolved in the concept of the “great victorious Russian people” and distorted by attempts to equate Ukrainian nationalists to German Nazis, while the occupation and colonization of Ukraine by Russian Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s has widely been ignored or artificially silenced. In her Four Essays on World War II, Olena Stiazhkina inscribes the Ukrainian history of the war into a wider European and world context. Amongst other aspects, she analyzes the mobilization measures on the eve of the war, reconsidering Soviet narratives. Scrutinizing the social and political processes initiated by the Bolshevik leadership in the 1920s and 1930s, Stiahhkina concludes that mobilization and militarization were integral parts of Soviet power policy. The Soviet and contemporary Russian narratives about World War II have been used to justify the Kremlin’s policies towards democratic countries. Today, Russia remains deeply engaged in the falsification of the past, which underpins the claims of the so-called “Russian World” and the ongoing war against Ukraine. Olena Stiazhkina’s book promotes a new, historically adequate understanding of what happened in Ukraine before, during, and after World War II.

The war separated families, took lives, broke fates ... It is very important to know and remember it at any time. Even many decades later, new details, memories, and testimonies appear. This book gathers several fascinating, true family stories written from accounts of parents, grandparents, etc. The authors, whose articles were collected with the help of the popular scientific publication Historical Truth, tell us about the worst war of the 20th century, about the fate of those people whose lives were divided forever into “before” and “after.” Here we can find first-hand accounts about Ukrainians who fought in various armies, about the lives of deported people, about the fate of people taken to compulsory labor camps, and about the men and women who remain in our memories forever.

Who is targeted by Putin’s propaganda and how does it work? What is “hybrid war,” and how is it related to the concept of the “Russian World”? Who is responsible for propaganda at the technical level, and how exactly does propagandistic journalism function? Who are Russia’s allies in terms of ideology and where do the main threats may come from? Finally: Is it possible to resist information war, and what are the best methods for fighting the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns? In this book, Ukrainian political scientist Mykola Davydiuk discusses these and other questions. In an accessible manner, the author shares his experience of resisting media propaganda. He gives examples of how people are being manipulated and explains how to avoid the role of a puppet in the Russian hybrid theater. The book will is especially valuable for those who care about the current developments in Ukraine and the information space its citizens live in, as well as for those who take an interest in politics, not waiting until politics takes an interest in them.

How to explain the mystery of fame? Many once well-known people who spent much of their lives at the core of historic events have fallen into oblivion since. The brilliant East Ukrainian poet and Soviet-era dissident Vasyl Stus (1938-85) became renowned only after his reburial in late Soviet Ukraine in 1989. What are the reasons for the widespread admiration for him in post-Soviet Ukrainian society? The exceptional beauty of his poetry? His stunning courage and selflessness as a Soviet dissident? The irreconcilability of his position as a human being? Or/and Vasyl Stus’ ability to feel the pain of others as his own?Trying to answer these and other questions, the poet’s son and literary scholar Dmytro Stus masterfully combines a cultural and biographical study with private recollections and observations of his father. The book offers a sometimes-paradoxical merger of genres mixing academic analysis with novelistic narration. It shows Vasyl Stus through the eyes of his son and researcher against the background of twentieth-century Ukrainian “belated” emergence as a nation-state. In 2007, the Ukrainian edition of this book won Ukraine’s prestigious Shevchenko National Prize.

In Eastern Ukraine, unfathomable human dramas have unfolded since 2014. Thousands died in the fighting. The homes of tens of thousands were destroyed. Many were captured and tortured, millions ousted from their homes. The lives of many were broken. Volunteers started to collect food, clothes and even weapons for the frontline. Charity organizations transferred donations to the Donets’ Basin (Donbas). Priests became chaplains for soldiers. Journalists and photographers flooded into the war-zone and sometimes became involved in the events.A Hungarian and Ukrainian journalist, Eperjesi and Kachura had the opportunity to meet and talk to many of these characters. The book provides a tableau of the emblematic figures of the war in the Donbas. It not only presents tragedies, but also human moments and noble deeds. The two journalists show how the lives of ordinary people have changed as a result of the horrors of war. They also spoke to pro-Russian militiamen and even with a Russian military officer captured in Ukraine. Shreds of War is one of the few authentic books with on-the-spot coverage, interviews, and dramatic photos documenting the war in Eastern Ukraine.

When Megan Buskey’s grandmother Anna dies in Cleveland in 2013, Megan is compelled in her grief to uncover and document her grandmother’s life as a native of Ukraine. A Ukrainian American, Buskey returns to her family’s homeland and enlists her relatives there to help her in her quest—and discovers much more than she expected. The result is an extraordinary journey that traces one woman’s story across Ukraine’s difficult twentieth century, from a Galician village emerging from serfdom, to the “bloodlands” of Eastern Europe during World War II, to the Siberian hinterlands where Anna spent almost two decades in exile before receiving the rare opportunity to emigrate from the Soviet Union in the 1960s. In the course of her research, Megan encounters essential and sometimes disturbing aspects of recent Ukrainian history, such as Nazi collaboration, the rise and persistence of Ukrainian nationalism, and the shattering impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Yet her wide-ranging inquiries keep leading her back to universal questions: What does family mean? How can you forge connections between generations that span different cultures, times, and places? And, perhaps most hauntingly, how can you best remember a complicated past that is at once foreign and personal?"A painfully honest and carefully researched journey of a Ukrainian American into her family’s complicated and difficult past. Anchored in the catastrophe of the Second World War and the subsequent Stalinist repression of the Ukrainian peasantry, the story flows, unexpectedly to the author herself, into the unfolding drama of the current Russian invasion. Thoughtful and beautifully written." —Jan Gross, Princeton University, author of Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland"This book is not only important, but captivating and instructive." —John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta"Megan Buskey’s blend of tireless investigation with thoughtful analysis and careful prose make this book an exemplar of the best traditions in historical writing."—Wil S. Hylton, author of Vanished: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II

Serhy Yekelchyk analyzes the development of Ukrainian history writing from the fall of communism to the early responses to Russia’s massive invasion in 2022. He emphasizes the global nature of the modern Ukrainian historical profession, the important role of the Ukrainian diaspora, and the new Western approaches increasingly taking hold in Ukrainian historiography. The author’s argument about the importance of Postcolonial Studies in developing a new conceptual vision of the Ukrainian past is especially relevant now, when Ukrainian intellectuals are openly speaking about decolonizing their country’s history and memory.* * *Russia’s all-out aggression against Ukraine was both justified and inspired by the Kremlin’s misuse and abuse of history as a discipline. What is the history of Ukraine as an academic discipline, and how should one interpret it? This book, by one of Ukraine’s leading historians, provides a unique perspective on the field of Ukrainian history from the inside. By focusing on the transformations in Ukrainian history writing and the public role of history since Ukrainian independence, it explains how both the discipline and the nation matured. Writing the Nation is a must-read book for anyone who wants to understand not only Ukraine’s past but also its present.Serhii Plokhy, Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and director of the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University  In his new book, Serhy Yekelchyk confirms his well-deserved reputation as a historian who is especially sensitive to methodological innovations and the latest currents in theoretical thought. Rich in detail, his critical study invites readers on a fascinating trip into the diverse and ambivalent field of Ukrainian history writing. This book challenges the reader to go against the grain by questioning traditional historical narratives.Andrii Portnov, Professor of the Entangled History of Ukraine, European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder).

This book explores the relationship between history, legitimacy, and violence in the building and breaking of nations and states on the territory of contemporary Ukraine during the Second World War and in its aftermath. At its center are various institutions of the Soviet state. Other states and rival political movements also enter the picture insofar as their acitivities influenced Soviet policies. Methodologically, the study shifts attention from a limited body of normative texts and their creators within the Soviet political and cultural elite to a wider array of practices, organizations, and players engaged in power struggles and production of knowledge about the past in different social domains. Specifically, it brings into focus groups not normally thought of as participants in the production of Soviet memory discourse, notably NKVD officers, Soviet archivists, Ukrainian nationalists, Nazi collaborators, and former partisans in the German-occupied territories. The book not only demonstrates the complexity of nation-shaping processes, but also restores agency to some seemingly powerless actors.

Whoever may have expected that Ukraine’s “Executed Renaissance”—i.e. the annihilation of the most creative, innovative and productive poets, thinkers, and artists in the 1920ies and 1930ies—may gloomily, but finally have receded to a distant past and remains a highly stimulating and controversial topic only for specialists in the fields of Ukrainian poetry, literature, and philosophy, will have experienced a distinct reminder that history is not finished. The “Executed Renaissance” is not even past in an independent Ukraine fighting for its liberty and cultural survival against genocidal imperialist aggression. Executing a Renaissance as the title of this collection responds both to the poets, thinkers, and scholars who are again persecuted and executed by the Russian soldateska. It is also an attempt at existential optimism against all odds, made possible by the courage and determination of the Ukrainian people. It insists on the monumental fact of the matter that Ukrainian intellectuals and artists are in the process of executing cultural and linguistic Renaissances in the grimmest of circumstances. With contributions by Olga Bertelsen, Polly Corrigan, Victoria Malko, Josef Wallmannsberger, and Mykola Zerov.

When Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022, academic life and other social activities in Ukraine changed drastically. Scholars who either stayed in their cities or were forced to evacuate gained first-hand participant observation experience of war. Their teaching and research have been interrupted, but they continued to reflect on social, political, and economic events in Ukraine. This book is a collection of personal reflections by scholars of different disciplines, offering a variety of perspectives on Russia’s war against Ukraine. We immerse in the personal experiences and stories of researchers who reflect on their academic and analytical backgrounds—sociology, political science, international relations, and literature. This unique collection offers not only fascinating and shocking insights from Ukrainian citizens but also the thoughts and reflections of scholars of several fields that help us better understand the situation in Ukrainian society during the war.