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Ukrainian Studies
Ukrainian Studies May 27, 2023

A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails

Translated by Amelia Glaser and Yulia Ilchuk

Halyna Kruk

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
"We act like children with our dead," Halyna Kruk writes as she struggles to come to terms with the horror unfolding around her: "confused, / as if none of us …

Ukrainian Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Ukraine about their new books

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Ukrainian Studies May 24, 2023

In the Hour of War

Poetry from Ukraine

Carolyn Forché and Ilya Kaminsky

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Ukraine may be the only country on earth that owes its existence, at least in part, to a poet. Ever since the appearance of Taras Shevchenko's Kobzar in 1840, poetry …
European Politics May 12, 2023

The Russo-Ukrainian War

The Return of History

Serhii Plokhy

Hosted by Tim Jones
"The Ukrainian nation will emerge from this war more united and certain of its identity than at any other point in its modern history," writes Serhii Plokhy at the end of …
Military History May 5, 2023

Putin's Wars

From Chechnya to Ukraine

Mark Galeotti

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Mark Galeotti's book Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involved since Vladimir Putin became prime minister and …
Ukrainian Studies April 29, 2023

Babyn Yar

Ukrainian Poets Respond

Research Center Coordinator Ostap Kin

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
In 2021, the world commemorates the 80th anniversary of the massacres of Jews at Babyn Yar. The present collection brings together for the first time the responses to the tragic …
Ukrainian Studies April 23, 2023

The Length of Days

An Urban Ballad

Volodymyr Rafeyenko (trans. Sibelan Forrester)

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
The Length of Days: An Urban Ballad (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2023) is set mostly in the composite Donbas city of Z--an uncanny foretelling of what this letter has come to symbolize …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones April 22, 2023

The Future of Eastern Europe

A Discussion with Zsuzsanna Szelényi

Zsuzsanna Szelényi

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with a range of responses in Eastern Europe – with some leaders offering muted solace to Vladimir Putin and others arming Ukraine …
European Politics April 21, 2023

Belarus in Crisis

From Domestic Unrest to the Russia-Ukraine War

Paul Hansbury

Hosted by Tim Jones
The war in Ukraine is entering what could well be its decisive phase as Kyiv prepares a counter-offensive and Russia announces plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons into Belarus as …
Genocide Studies April 17, 2023

The Holodomor and the Origins of the Soviet Man

Reading the Testimony of Anastasia Lysyvets

Vitalii Ogiienko

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Anastasia Lysyvets’s memoir Tell us about a happy life … (Skazhy pro shchaslyve zhyttia …), published in Kyiv in 2009 and now available for the first time in an English …
European Politics April 14, 2023

Putin's War on Ukraine

Russia's Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution

Samuel Ramani

Hosted by Tim Jones
Even as Vladimir Putin massed close to 200,000 troops on Ukraine's border in February 2022, many experts claimed it was a bluff. At worst he would take the Donetsk and …
Ukrainian Studies April 11, 2023

Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine

Catherine Wanner

Hosted by John Vsetecka
Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine (Cornell UP, 2022) reveals how and why religion has become a pivotal political force in a society struggling to overcome the legacy …
Ukrainian Studies April 7, 2023

The Voices of Babyn Yar

Marianna Kiyanovska

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Today I talked to the translators of Marianna Kiyanovska's The Voices of Babyn Yar (HURI, 2022), Max Rosochinsky and  Oksana Maksymchuk. With this collection of stirring poems the award-winning Ukrainian poet honors the …
European Politics April 7, 2023

Russia's War

Jade McGlynn

Hosted by Tim Jones
A year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and nine years since its annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukraine’s far east, why are so many Russians still behind this brutal …
Russian and Eurasian Studies March 31, 2023

Russia's War on Everybody

And What it Means for You

Keir Giles

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz
With the annexation of Crimea in 2014 as well the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia's place in the world is a matter of fierce debate among world leaders and …
How to Be Wrong March 25, 2023

War, Optimism, Humility

A Conversation with Literary Critic Mariia Shuvalova

Mariia Shuvalova

Hosted by John Traphagan
This episode of How To Be Wrong is a conversation with Mariia Shuvalova, a lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Fulbright Scholar (Harriman Institute, Columbia University in the …
Ukrainian Studies March 23, 2023

Dam Duchess

Svetlana Lavochkina

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Svetlana Lavochkina's book Dam Duchess (Whiskey Tit, 2018) invites readers to take a surreal journey into the past: the construction of Dnipro Dam, the Stalinist regime, the fate of the aristocrats of …
Ukrainian Studies March 22, 2023

How Patronal Networks Shape Opportunities for Local Citizen Participation in a Hybrid Regime

A Comparative Analysis of Five Cities in Ukraine

Oleksandra Keudel

Hosted by John Vsetecka
In How Patronal Networks Shape Opportunities for Local Citizen Participation in a Hybrid Regime: A Comparative Analysis of Five Cities in Ukraine (Ibidem, 2022), Oleksandra Keudel proposes a novel explanation for why some …
Russian and Eurasian Studies March 20, 2023

Picturing the Page

Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin

Megan Swift

Hosted by Polina Popova
Based on sources from rare book libraries in Russia and around the world, Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (U Toronto Press, 2020) offers …
Ukrainian Studies March 12, 2023

Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet

A Family Story of Exile and Return

Megan Buskey

Hosted by John Vsetecka
Today I talked to Megan Buskey about her book Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet: A Family Story of Exile and Return (Ibidem-Verlag, 2023). When Megan Buskey’s grandmother Anna dies in Cleveland in …
Jewish Studies March 10, 2023

The Butterfly and the Axe

Omer Bartov

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Spring 1944. A Jewish family is murdered in a remote Ukrainian village. Who were they? Who were the killers? Three generations later, an Israeli woman and a British man of …