Ukrainian Voices

Series · 20

books · 2008-2022

By Stanislav Aseyev, Віра Агеєва, Andrii Demartino, and more

Books in series

Ukraine's Maidan, Russia's War

A Chronicle and Analysis of the Revolution of Dignity

2019

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 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 postmodern heterarchy, a previously passive post-Soviet country experienced a profound social revolution that generated new “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.

Understanding Contemporary Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism

The Post-Soviet Cossack Revival and Ukraine's National Security

2020

This monograph explores the causes and conditions of postcommunist nationalist revivals focusing on the reemergence of Cossack movements in Russia and Ukraine since the late 1980s. The study explores how different theories of nationalism underpinned different national policies and, ultimately, the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Towards a Political Economy of Ukraine

2020

The essays in this book explore the major developments, both domestic and international, that shaped the first quarter-century of Ukraine’s 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.

Ukraine in Histories and Stories

Essays by Ukrainian Intellectuals

2019

This book is a collection of texts by contemporary Ukrainian intellectuals: writers, historians, philosophers, political analysts, opinion leaders. The texts have been written for the international audience. The collection combines reflections on Ukraine’s history (or histories, in plural), and analysis of the present, conceptual ideas and life stories. The book presents a multi-faceted image of Ukrainian memory and reality: from the Holodomor to Maidan, from Russian aggression to cultural diversity, from the depth of the past to the complexity of the present. The PDF of the English-language version: ukraineworld.org/storage/app/media/Uk... The PDF of the Ukrainian-language version: ukraineworld.org/storage/app/media/uk...

At the Fence of Metternich’s Garden

Essays on Europe, Ukraine, and Europeanization

2008

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.

Ukraine Calling

A Kaleidoscope from Hromadske Radio 2016–2019

2021

This book is like a time capsule containing a selection of interviews that aired on Hromadske Radio’s Ukraine Calling show. They capture what people were thinking during a critical time in the country’s history, from the July 2016 NATO Summit through to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 2019 landslide election victories. Decision makers, opinion makers, and other interesting people commented on events of the day as well as larger issues. Topics range from politics to sports, religion, history, war, books, diplomacy, health, business, art, holidays, foreign policy, anniversaries, public opinion to freedom of speech. Interview guests include Canada’s then Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, writer Andrey Kurkov, Crimean political prisoner Hennadii Afanasiev, who was tortured in 2014, Ukraine’s acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun, American analyst/journalist Brian Whitmore, UNHRC’s Pablo Mateu, ethnologist Ihor Poshyvailo, investment banker Olena Bilan, Tufts University’s Daniel Drezner, a cameo appearance by Boris Johnson, and many more. Together these interviews provide a unique, diverse, and kaleidoscopic perspective conveying the substance, atmosphere, and flavor of Ukraine while it was on the receiving end of a hybrid war from Russia.

Our Others

Stories of Ukrainian Diversity

2018

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.

#10

Zero Point Ukraine

Four Essays on World War II

2021

In her Four Essays on World War II, Olena Stiazhkina inscribes the Ukrainian history of World War II into a wider European and world context. Among other aspects, she analyzes the mobilization measures on the eve of the war, and reconsiders Soviet narratives on them. Scrutinizing social and political processes initiated by the Bolshevik leadership in the 1920s and 1930s, she outlines how mobilization and militarization became integral parts of Soviet politics.Today, the Kremlin uses Soviet and post-Soviet Russian narratives of World War II to justify its aggressive policies towards a number of democratic countries. Russia is engaged in falsification of the past to underpin claims of a so-called "Russian World" and its ongoing war against Ukraine. Against this background, Stiazhkina offers a new understanding of what happened in Ukraine before, during, and after World War II.

#11

Ukrainian Dissidents

2021

This anthology draws attention to the Ukrainian dissident movement and offers detailed insights into this phenomenon among Western readers. The stories of ideas and personal undertakings are unfolding before the reader in a vivid pulsation of texts that testify for themselves. The collection gathers texts from different genres: from poetry, public speeches, and samvydav (self-published, uncensored) texts to court speeches, texts on being held in jails, special psychiatric hospitals for those not accepting the official ideology, and prison camps, and finally to self-reflection on personal experiences of opposing the totali¬ta¬rian system. The variety of texts creates a multidimensional and meaningful picture of the Ukrainian dis¬sident movement—a generation of Ukrainian public and cultural figures who, one way or the other, insisted on their freedom of speech and made history by daring to challenge the official ideology and culture.

#12

Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust

OUN and UPA's Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941-1944

2021

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’s 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.

#13

False Mirrors

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

2021

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.

#14

Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art

Political and Social Perspectives, 1991–2021

2021

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.

#15

A Loss

The Story of a Dead Soldier Told by His Sister

2021

Killed by shrapnel as he served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Olesya Khromeychuk’s brother Volodymyr died on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. As Olesya tries to come to terms with losing her brother, she also tries to process the Russian invasion of Ukraine: as an immigrant living far from the frontline, as a historian of war and how societies respond to them, and as a woman, a civilian, and a sister. In this timely blend of memoir and essay, Olesya Khromeychuk tells the story of her brother – the wiser older sibling, the artist and the soldier – and of his death. Deeply moving and thoughtful, The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister picks apart the ways political violence shapes everyone and everything it touches and depicts with extraordinary intimacy the singular and complicated bond between a brother and sister. Olesya’s vivid writing is a personal and powerful commitment to honesty in life, in death and in memory.

#16

Understanding Ukraine

Tracing the Roots of Terror and Violence

2021

The 2013–2014 Euromaidan Revolution’s call for justice, dignity, and liberty brought Ukraine, which had ’disappeared ’ behind the Iron Curtain for decades after the horrors of World War II, into the world’s public consciousness. Yet, the country was soon almost forgotten again. In early 2022, the rapid escalation of Putin’s war on Ukraine has put the country back into the spotlight. Without knowing the country’s past, one cannot understand its present. This anthology tackles the complex history of terror and violence in Ukraine – from the millionfold starvation of the Holodomor to the changing occupation regimes, from the ’Shoah by Bullets’ to the Chornobyl disaster. Those ready to delve deeper into the checkered, painful history of the country will better understand Ukraine’s current quest for independence, freedom, and democracy. The volume’s contributors are Serhii Plokhii, Timothy D. Snyder, Anna Veronika Wendland, Anne Applebaum, Eduard Klein, Gelinada Grinchenko, Gerhard Simon, Irina Scherbakowa, Jan Claas Behrends, Karel C. Berkhoff, Kateryna Mishchenko, Klaus Wolschner, Nikolai Klimeniouk, Nikolaus von Twickel, Oksana Grytsenko, Ottmar Trașcă, Rebecca Harms, Sebastian Christ, Sébastien Gobert, Viktoria Savchuk, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Wilfried Jilge, Christoph Brumme, and Yevhen Hlibovytsky.

#17

The Torture Camp on Paradise Street

2020

Stanislav Aseyev (2021), The Torture Camp on Paradise Street. Translated from the Russian: Nina Murray; Zenia Tompkins. Lviv: The Old Lion Publishing House. ? p. ISBN ?

#20

"Я змішаю твою кров із вугіллям". Зрозуміти український Схід

2020

Який насправді український Схід? Що ховається за териконами та безкраїми полями? Що буде, якщо подивитися крізь вугільний пил та посічений снарядами фасад на справжнє серце Сходу? Олександр Михед протягом року досліджував український Схід - його культуру, ідентичність, особливості шести міст Донеччини й Луганщини. Він не лише описує побачене, почуте і відчуте, а й робить відчайдушну і щиру спробу зрозуміти Схід з усіма його протиріччями та конфліктами - зовнішніми і внутрішніми. Шахтарі, бельгійські й британські інвестори, які засновували міста, видобуток безцінного вугілля, кривава радянська історія, активісти, які розбудовують країну тепер і світлі спогади про втрачений рай. Як одна з найстаріших черепах в світі, яка брала участь у Кримській війні 1850-х, пов’язана з заснуванням Донецька? Якою ціною людських життів окроплена кожна тонна видобутого вугілля? Яке життя прожив фотограф, котрий народився за два роки до сінематографу братів Люмьєр, прожив майже ціле століття і за все життя зробив понад 5000 фотографій? І також шість унікальних розмов із тими, хто народився на Сході, всотував його досвіди й біль та від часу війни невпинно допомагає осмислювати жах дійсності: Сергій Жадан, Алевтина Кахідзе, Ігор Козловський, Роман Мінін, Володимир Рафєєнко та Олена Стяжкіна.

#22

World War II, Uncontrived and Unredacted

Testimonies from Ukraine

2021

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.

#23

Vasyl Stus

Life in Creativity

2015

Nobody knows 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. The Ukrainian edition of this book won Ukraine’s prestigious Shevchenko National Prize.

#25

За лаштунками імперії

2021

Про українсько-російські взаємини вже багато написано в контексті російських інтересів і пріоритетів. Росія безцеремонно облагороджувала свою історію чужими звитягами й здобутками, позбавляючи натомість українців їхнього минулого. З українського погляду, картина зовсім інакша. Уже не одне століття речницею антиколоніального дискурсу є вітчизняна література. Від Котляревського, Квітки-Основ’яненка, харківських романтиків аж до епохи модернізму й зрештою постання держави вона пропонувала різні моделі ідентичности, підважуючи імперські претензії й утверджуючи власну культурну самодостатність. У цій книжці авторитетна літературознавиця Віра Агеєва через призму культурного процесу аналізує український спротив імперії та боротьбу за збереження колективної пам’яти.

#25

The Holodomor and the Origins of the Soviet Man

Reading the Testimony of Anastasia Lysyvets

2022

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 trans¬la¬tion, is one of the most powerful testimonies of a victim of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. This mass starvation was organized by the Soviet regime and resulted in millions of deaths by hunger. The simple village teacher Lysyvets’s testimony, written during the 1970s and 1980s without hope of publication, depicts pain, death, and hunger as few others do. In his commentary, Vitalii Ogiienko explains how traumatic traces found their way into Lysyvets’s text. He proposes that the reader develops an alternative method of reading that replaces the usual ways of imagining with a focus on the body and that detects mechanisms of transmission of the original Holodomor experience through generations.

Authors

Stanislav Aseyev

Author · 2 books

* Russian-language profile: Станислав Асеев * Ukrainian-language profile: Станіслав Асєєв

Віра Агеєва

Author · 4 books

Українська літературознавиця, літературна критикиня. 1980 - закінчила Київський університет. 1985—1996 - працювала в Інституті літератури НАНУ. 1995—1997 — заступниця редактора журналу «Слово і час». Від 1996 року — професорка Національного університету «Києво-Могилянська академія». Досліджує проблеми стильової диференціації української літератури 20 століття, особливості розвитку українського модернізму, виявляє зацікавлення феміністською інтерпретацією текстів.

Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher, journalist and writer. Doctor of political studies (France), PhD in philosophy (kandydat nauk, Ukraine). Director of Analytics at Internews Ukraine, Chief editor of the multimedia project UkraineWorld.org. Senior lecturer at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Book writer, winner of Petro Mohyla Prize (2021), Yurii Sheveliov Prize (2018), Book of the Year prize in Ukraine (2018, 2015) and others.

American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. As a historian Himka was a Marxist in the 1970s–80s, but became influenced by postmodernism in the 1990s. In 2012 he defined his methodology in history as "eclectic".

Яремчук Олеся Любомирівна (25 травня 1991, Львів) — українська журналістка та письменниця. 2013 року закінчила факультет журналістики Львівського національного університету імені Івана Франка. Журналістка-фрілансерка для газети «День» (Київ), журналів «Літакцент» (Київ), «New Eastern Europe» (Краків) та «Українського журналу» (Прага). З 2015 — авторка та журналістка проекту про національні меншини в Україні «Наші Інші» в онлайн-журналі «The Ukrainians» (Львів). Репортажі з циклу «Наші Інші» перекладені чеською, німецькою та англійською мовами.

Олександр Михед (нар. 1988) – культуролог, літературознавець, куратор мистецьких проектів. Співробітник відділу теорії літератури Інституту літератури ім. Т.Г. Шевченка НАН України. Закінчив Інститут філології Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка. Кандидат філологічних наук. Автор понад 150 публікацій у провідних українських ЗМІ та виданнях Німеччини, Сербії, Польщі, США та Білорусі. Вибрані есеї перекладено англійською, польською, сербською, російською мовами. Куратор “АмнезіЯ project: відкрита платформа” – літературно-мистецького мультимедійного проекту, підґрунтям для якого стала художня книга «АмнезіЯ», що вийшла друком 2013 р. у видавництві “Електрокнига”. Уривки книжки перекладено англійською, італійською, німецькою, польською та фінською мовами. Проект увійшов в сімку найкращих проектів світу, за версією фестивалю “SOUNDOUT!” (м. Берлін). Автор збірки оповідань “Понтиїзм“, що вийшла друком 2014 р. у “Видавництві Кальварія”. Оповідання друкувалися в “Кур’єрі Кривбасу” та на сайті “Українська правда. Життя“. Книга ввійшла в довгі списки премій “Книга року Бібісі-2014″ та “ЛітАкцент року”. Автор психотрилера “Астра”, що з’явився друком 2015 р. у “Видавництві Анетти Антоненко”. Ввійшов до списку “Молоді письменники, з якими варто познайомитись”, складеного виданням “Українська правда”. Гостьовий редактор спеціальної української теми он-лайн журналу світової літератури Words Without Borders (м. Нью-Йорк, США). Переклав українською романи Бориса Акуніна “Сокіл і Ластівка” та “Турецький гамбіт” (видавництво “Клуб сімейного дозвілля”, 2012). Спільно з Богданою Матіяш переклав українською вірші американської художниці Дженні Хольцер («Есеї підбурення», редактор Антоніна Ящук, 2010). Також здійснив переклад кількох інформаційних видань PinchukArtCentre (2010-2012). Куратор персональної виставки білоруського митця Алєксєя Шинкаренка (“Білоруська фактографія. Частина І”, галерея “Квартира 57″, 27 травня – 9 червня 2013 р.), польсько-української групової фотовиставки “EURO: дві країни – одна історія” (Музей історії міста Києва, 12-30 червня 2013 р.), арт-прогулянки “depARTments” в рамках міжнародного фестивалю “Транскавказія” (14-16 червня 2013 р.). Співкуратор виставки “АмнезіЯ project: відкрита платформа” (Leteraturhaus Lettretage, Берлін, Німеччина, 28-29 травня 2014 р.) . Організатор, модератор і учасник численних літературно-мистецьких і освітніх заходів та міжнародних наукових конференцій. В якості куратора Літературної програми PinchukArtCentre (2010-2012) виступив куратором трьох літературних ночей в PinchukArtCentre: «Новітнє мистецтво і література: територія контакту» (17.12.2010), «Новітнє мистецтво і література: територія контакту – 2» (18.03.2011), «Новітнє мистецтво і література: територія контакту – 3» (24.06.2011), літературного марафону “7 про 20″ (24.12.2011), а також спеціальних проектів «Чути, щоб бути почутим» (25.11.2011), «Долі окремих людей» (02.03.2012) та «Кровні зв’язки: вечір запитань до ”Тисячі та однієї ночі”» (18.08.2012). Експерт Всеукраїнського рейтингу «Книжка року 2011», учасник «Кураторської платформи» PinchukArtCentre та «Школи кінокритиків» у рамках Одеського міжнародного кінофестивалю 2012 року, ментор Школи літературної критики і книжкової журналістики “Контекст-2″, куратор Літературної програми ГОГОЛЬFEST 2013, співкуратор Літературної програми ГОГОЛЬFEST 2014, учасник літературних резиденцій у Фінляндії та Латвії. У своїй мультивекторній роботі за допомогою комплексного підходу ставить за мету створити цілісне бачення сучасної масової культури: література – кінематограф – мистецтво. (Source: www.mykhed.com)

Olesya Khromeychuk

Author · 1 books

Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian of 20th century East-Central Europe, specialising in Ukrainian history. She has a PhD in History from University College London. Olesya has previously taught at King’s College London, the University of East Anglia, University College London and the University of Cambridge. She also runs a theatre company, Molodyi Teatr London, that stages documentary pieces exploring urgent social and political themes. Originally from Lviv, Olesya moved to the UK in 2000, since when she has been actively engaged in the life of the Ukrainian community in London and beyond.

Mykola Riabchuk

Author · 3 books

Mykola Riabchuk (Ukrainian: Микола Рябчук) is a Ukrainian public intellectual, journalist, political analyst, literary critic, translator and writer. Riabchuk is known for his analytical articles and essays on Ukrainian politics, national identity and analysis of Ukrainian history from postcolonial perspective. More on Mykola Riabchuk in wikipedia.org