Post-revolutionary Ukrainian society displays a unique mix of hope, enthusiasm, social creativity, collective trauma of war, radicalism and disillusionment. With the Maidan becoming history, the focal point ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ explores the new challenges facing the young democracy, its place in Europe, and the lessons it might offer for the future of the European project.
This focal point stems from the project ‘Ukraine in European Dialogue’ at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna. The focal point is edited by Katherine Younger at the IWM. From 2016 to 2018 it was edited by Tatiana Zhurzhenko. Further texts have been contributed by journals in the Eurozine network.
In collaboration with
‘I see myself seeing myself’
Photographic experimentation in Soviet Ukraine
Amateur photographers offered a range of alternative windows on life in the USSR undercutting the dogmas of socialist realist aesthetics. Bohdan Shumylovych places the Kharkiv School of Photography under Lacan’s psychoanalytic ‘cultural gaze’.
On the debris of the Donbas
Uncovering the identity behind regional unrest
The city of Donetsk’s call for independence from Ukraine is a pivotal issue in war-torn Donbas. Its role as regional centre, at the core of the Donbas Coal Basin, upholds its weighty position. But environmental protests in Mariupol, says Yulia Abibok, show how local identity is split, perhaps irrevocably.
28 kilos of Crimea
Working with traumatic experience in art
Loss and detachment are lasting psychological issues for those displaced by war. When Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, the region became inaccessible to those fleeing and other nationals already living elsewhere. Artists Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev explore how ruptures in collective memory can address trauma at distance.
The price of freedom
A transatlantic conversation
At a moment that is Hamletesque in Minsk and Washington alike, Marci Shore illuminates moments of choice, and what these mean for freedom and human dignity. The following is a transatlantic conversation inspired by Ukraine, moderated by Kant and open to all.
Humanity and catastrophe
Authors probing history’s silences for justice’s sake
Guilty secrets hide culpability. And, when the responsibility for crimes against humanity lies shamefully buried, injustice prevails. Authors Serhii Plokhy and Philippe Sands discuss their approaches to uncovering the truth behind Nazi and Soviet war crimes and the Chernobyl disaster.
When trust defines everything
COVID-19 in a polarized Ukraine
The Ukrainian government’s pandemic response has got dramatically different reviews. The Zelensky administration declared a strict lockdown early on and has mobilized big business, enjoying wide popular support, but anti-corruption activists and established intellectuals remain suspicious. Nataliya Gumenyuk asks who to trust.
Hopes and dreams of the bigger world
Ukrainian art since Maidan
Maidan set art free from the fight for the political agenda, since everything has become a part of the political agenda. On the other hand, the rapidly accelerating political and geopolitical changes brought several challenges for artists.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s rise to power in Ukraine has left many observers confused. An influential cultural operative for decades, he has been written off as a clown, despite strong popular support and his rapid first reforms suggesting otherwise. Now the task for the Zelensky team is to deliver on the high hopes they have built their campaign on.
The January 2019 creation of an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, independent of Russian religious and political power, has produced tensions at home and in the wider Orthodox world. Presented by the Poroshenko regime as a patriotic symbol, it has yet to establish itself as the dominant Ukrainian church. Moscow’s efforts to undermine the OCU have hindered its recognition globally, though the tide may be turning and the church’s future depends on how it meets these challenges.
Damage done
The Trump–Ukraine controversy in perspective
Coverage of the Trump–Ukraine controversy has focused on the political fall-out in the US. But the harm done to Ukraine may be much more severe and enduring. Not only has US military aid been made conditional, but even worse: the credibility of the US as ally and example in the fight against corruption has been destroyed, writes the head of Hromadske TV.
Violence and anti-violence
Ukraine between Russia and Europe
Western Europe’s culture of anti-violence continues to exert a magnetic pull on Ukrainian society. But will that be enough to resist Russia’s twenty-first century politics of dog-eat-dog? The answer depends on the strength of Europe’s own conviction, argues philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko.
The trope of building bridges between peoples on opposing sides of a conflict often seems compelling, and infers an inevitable benevolence. Yet Mykola Riabchuk considers the strategy itself to be misguided, especially when those bridges actually separate people instead of bringing them together.
What could have happened had a local war for Lviv not drawn forces away from the Ukrainian revolution in 1918? Experimenting with counterfactual history allows us to reconsider simple questions and search for more precise answers.
Security over liberty?
The double threat to Ukrainian democracy
Five years after the revolution at Maidan, Ukraine faces a very limited choice: either giving in to Russian aggression or tolerating domestic corruption. Martial law was recently imposed after Russia blocked the Azov Sea, yet official reasons for the state of emergency seem to disguise political power play.
For Oksana Forostyna, memories of Maidan mingle with accounts of her grandmother’s life in Kyiv before and during World War Two. Recollections of her own search for happiness in her adoptive city lead to more universal questions about the possibility of freedom and love amidst conflict and war.
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