Ukraine vs. Darkness
Ukraine vs. Darkness

Author: Olexander Scherba

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-04-30

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 383821501X

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This book draws on the author’s experience from 26 years of Ukrainian diplomatic service in, among others, Bonn, Berlin, Washington, and Vienna, and his work as a speechwriter to most Ukrainian foreign ministers for the last two decades. Scherba’s captivating essays reflect his views of international affairs from a Ukrainian perspective. His deliberations are presented in uncomplicated, plain language. The articles assembled here have repeatedly caused discussion in Ukraine and abroad. By his opponents, Scherba is often described as being surprisingly undiplomatic and even provocative. For instance, his article “Why nationalism can’t be the national idea of a European Ukraine”, published on a Ukrainian nationalist website, stirred considerable controversy in Ukraine. Aside from explaining Kyiv’s take on some key issues of international relations, these essays provide insights into Ukrainian political thinking since the start of Russia’s military aggression in 2014, and into the painful political intramural fights in Ukrainian society ever since.

Ukraine's Maidan, Russia's War
Ukraine's Maidan, Russia's War

Author: Mychailo Wynnyckyj

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 3838213270

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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.

Ukrainian Dissidents: An Anthology of Texts
Ukrainian Dissidents: An Anthology of Texts

Author: Oleksii Stus, Dmytro Finberg, Leonid Sinchenko

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 3838215516

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This anthology of seminal texts documents the development of the post-war anti-Soviet Ukrainian dissident movement. The collection is designed to introduce, via some crucial primary sources, Western and other non-Ukrainian readers to various forms of Ukrainian opposition to the communist regime. Stories of ideas and personal undertakings are unfolding before the reader in a vivid pulsation of texts that testify for themselves. The anthology gathers contributions from different genres. They range from poetry, public speeches, and samvydav—uncensored, self-published—texts to court speeches. They come from dissidents who were held in jails, special psychiatric hospitals (for not accepting the official ideology), and prison camps. Finally, they include self-reflections by dissidents on their personal experience of opposing the totalitarian system. This variety of contributions creates a multidimensional picture of the Ukrainian dissident movement—a generation of prominent Ukrainian public and cultural figures who, in one way or another, insisted on their freedom of speech and made history by daring to challenge the official ideology and culture. This remarkable book about the struggle for freedom has been compiled by Oleksii Sinchenko, Dmytro Stus, and Leonid Finberg. Scholarly reviewed by Myroslav Marynovych.

Ukraine in Histories and Stories
Ukraine in Histories and Stories

Author: Volodymyr Yermolenko

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-10-20

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 3838214560

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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.

Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust
Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust

Author: John-Paul Himka

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 3838215486

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One quarter of all Holocaust victims lived on the territory that now forms Ukraine, yet the Holocaust there has not received due attention. This book delineates the participation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia—UPA), in the destruction of the Jewish population of Ukraine under German occupation in 1941–44. The extent of OUN and UPA’s culpability in the Holocaust has been a controversial issue in Ukraine and within the Ukrainian diaspora as well as in Jewish communities and Israel. Occasionally, the controversy has broken into the press of North America, the EU, and Israel. Triangulating sources from Jewish survivors, Soviet investigations, German documentation, documents produced by OUN itself, and memoirs of OUN activists, it has been possible to establish that: OUN militias were key actors in the anti-Jewish violence of summer 1941; OUN recruited for and infiltrated police formations that provided indispensable manpower for the Germans' mobile killing units; and in 1943, thousands of these policemen deserted from German service to join the OUN-led nationalist insurgency, during which UPA killed Jews who had managed to survive the major liquidations of 1942.

False Mirrors: The Weaponization of Social Media in Russia’s Operation to Annex Crimea
False Mirrors: The Weaponization of Social Media in Russia’s Operation to Annex Crimea

Author: Andrey Demartino

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 3838215338

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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.

At the Fence of Metternich's Garden
At the Fence of Metternich's Garden

Author: Mykola Riabchuk

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 3838214846

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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.

Our Others
Our Others

Author: Olesya Yaremchuk

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-11-16

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 3838214757

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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)

Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art
Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art

Author: Svitlana Biedarieva

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3838215265

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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.