It’s been a while since I posted anything new on this blog. Since I’ve just returned (to western Europe, at least) from a trip to Ukraine, and since I’ve had a few requests to share my impressions, here they are. This is not a scholarly analysis, and it avoids the vigorous debates going on among political and sociological observers — which, from the outside, may appear as “glass half full, glass half empty” polemics. It is just a general overview rooted in my years of visiting this country.
Engaging with history in Ukraine
15 08 2015Writing in The Nation, Jared McBride raises some important questions about the uses of (and control over) history in wartime Ukraine.
Marci Shore’s “Reading Tony Judt in Wartime Ukraine” indirectly, but provocatively, answers them.
Andrei Portnov’s “On Decommunization, Identity, and Legislating History, from a Slightly Different Angle” provides a balanced perspective on the same issues.
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Categories : Uncategorized
Link dump
26 07 2015Links to various articles relevant to the topics explored on this blog (I may add to this list, so please check back periodically):
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/17/how-we-know-russia-shot-down-mh17.html
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2015/07/13/open-source-information-reveals-pro-kremlin-web-campaign/
http://voxukraine.org/2014/10/01/trust-and-prejudice/
http://culture.lb.ua/news/2015/05/08/304258_filosofi_tsitiruet_putin_.html
https://www.opendemocracy.net/denis-gorbach/struggle-for-progressive-politics-in-ukraine
http://krytyka.com/en/articles/country-war-love-excerpts-donetsk-diary
http://rbth.com/opinion/2015/02/05/the_real_leviathan_43475.html
Comments : 7 Comments »
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Nihilist vs. Kagarlitsky
22 04 2015Russophone leftists Nihilist.li provide a “take-down” of prominent Russian left-wing intellectual Boris Kagarlitsky, translated here. Kagarlitsky has been an influential voice on Western Left understandings of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Nihilist arose from the ashes of Left Affair (Liva Sprava).
Comments : 11 Comments »
Categories : Maidan, Ukrainian Left politics
Marples: On the “Fighters for Ukrainian Independence” Law
10 04 2015David Marples provides an astute critique of the new parliamentary law “Concerning the legal status and commemorating the memory of the fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century,” here.
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Kroker & Weinstein: Maidan as third force
9 03 2015With their talk of supernovas, black holes, and event-horizons, Arthur Kroker and Michael Weinstein’s “Maidan, Caliphate, and Code: Theorizing Power and Resistance in the 21st Century” is not exactly social science in any recognizable form. Read as poetry, however, its rendition of the state of affairs in and between Ukraine and Russia is provocative and worth reading.
Comments : 13 Comments »
Categories : Maidan
“We do not need your support”
15 02 2015This statement from December, a response by Ukrainian independent left groups to some western leftists’ (perceived) support for Russian aggression against Ukraine, deserves to be reprinted, as the attitudes it targets continue in some places.
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Kowalewski: On the Donbas rebellion
15 02 2015In “The Oligarchic Rebellion in the Donbas,” Polish socialist Zbigniew Kowalewski provides an astute analysis of the Donbas separatist movement as an oligarchic project of the regional capitalist elite.
Comments : 8 Comments »
Categories : Donbas
A history of the crisis in maps
12 02 2015The New York Times offers a history in maps of the Ukraine crisis, here.
Comments : 13 Comments »
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McFinn on navigating the “arm Ukraine” debate
12 02 2015Rory McFinn offers a handy set of guidelines for distinguishing Ukraine crisis commentators who don’t know much about Ukraine from those who do, here.
Comments : 6 Comments »
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