Conventional wisdom dictates that Ukraine's political crises can be traced to the linguistic differences and divided political loyalties that have long fractured the country. However, this theory obscures the true significance of Ukraine's recent civic revolution and the conflict's crucial international dimension. The 2013-14 Ukrainian revolution presented authoritarian powers in Russia with both a democratic and a geopolitical challenge. In reality, political conflict in Ukraine is reflective of global discord, stemming from differing views on state power, civil society, and democracy. Ukraine's sudden prominence in American politics has compounded an already-widespread misunderstanding of what is actually happening in the nation. In the American media, Ukraine has come to signify an inherently corrupt place, rather than a real country struggling in the face of great challenges. Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know (R) is an updated edition of Serhy Yekelchyk's 2015 publication, The Conflict in Ukraine. It addresses Ukraine's relations with the West, particularly the United States, from the perspective of Ukrainians. The book explains how independent Ukraine fell victim to crony capitalism, how its people rebelled twice in the last two decades in the name of democracy and against corruption, and why Russia reacted so aggressively to the strivings of Ukrainians. Additionally, it looks at what we know about alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, the factors behind the stunning electoral victory of the political novice Volodymyr Zelensky, and the ways in which the events leading to the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump have changed the Russia-Ukraine-US relationship. This volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the forces that have shaped contemporary politics in this increasingly important part of Europe, as well as the international background of the impeachment proceedings in the US.

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 translation, 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.

This bilingual collection of essays celebrates Marko Pavlyshyn's outstanding contribution to the study of modern and contemporary Ukrainian literature and culture. With its many methodological approaches and the variety of periods, authors and texts that it analyzes, the book reflects and builds on Pavlyshyn's willingness to modernize our understanding of Ukrainian literature as an instrument of communication between authors, readers and the nation from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Hopefully these essays will inspire readers and scholars to continue their journey through Ukrainian culture, in a context profoundly marked by the role of literary texts as agents of nation building and social evolution.

Based on declassified materials from eight Ukrainian and Russian archives, "Stalin's Empire of Memory," offers a complex and vivid analysis of the politics of memory under Stalinism. Using the Ukrainian republic as a case study, Serhy Yekelchyk elucidates the intricate interaction between the Kremlin, non-Russian intellectuals, and their audiences.

Yekelchyk posits that contemporary representations of the past reflected the USSR's evolution into an empire with a complex hierarchy among its nations. In reality, he argues, the authorities never quite managed to control popular historical imagination or fully reconcile Russia's 'glorious past' with national mythologies of the non-Russian nationalities.

Combining archival research with an innovative methodology that links scholarly and political texts with the literary works and artistic images, "Stalin's Empire of Memory" presents a lucid, readable text that will become a must-have for students, academics, and anyone interested in Russian history.

The first study of the everydayness of political life under Stalin, this book examines Soviet citizenship through common practices of expressing Soviet identity in the public space. The Stalinist state understood citizenship as practice, with participation in a set of political rituals and public display of certain "civic emotions" serving as the marker of a person's inclusion in the political world. The state's relations with its citizens were structured by rituals of celebration, thanking, and hatred-rites that required both political awareness and a demonstrable emotional response. Soviet functionaries transmitted this obligation to ordinary citizens through the mechanisms of communal authority (workplace committees, volunteer agitators, and other forms of peer pressure) as much as through brutal state coercion. Yet, the population also often imbued these ceremonies-elections, state holidays, parades, mass rallies, subscriptions to state bonds-with different meanings: as a popular fete, an occasion to get together after work, a chance to purchase goods not available on other days, and even as an opportunity to indulge in some drinking. The people also understood these political rituals as moments of negotiation whereby citizens fulfilling their "patriotic duty " expected the state to reciprocate by providing essential services and basic social welfare. Nearly-universal passive resistance to required attendance casts doubt on recent theories about the mass internalization of communist ideology and the development of "Soviet subjectivities. "The book is set in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv during the last years of World War II and immediate postwar years, the period best demonstrating how formulaic rituals could create space for the people to express their concerns, fears, and prejudices, as well as their eagerness to be viewed as citizens in good standing. By the end of Stalin's rule, a more ossified routine of political participation developed, which persisted until the Soviet Union's collapse.

This collection of essays offers new research insights on a wide range of scholarly topics, from movie audiences in Stalin's time to women's writing in turn-of-the-century Vienna. This book is a collection of essays by specialists in Russian, Ukrainian, German, Austrian and Croatian culture, literature, language and film. The book offers new research insights on a wide range of scholarly topics, including the cultural mythology of St. Petersburg, movie audiences in Stalin's time, women's writing in turn-of-the-century Vienna, musical and literary intertexts in Schubert and Goethe, linguistic features of contemporary Russian word-formation, Jewish themes in Russian poetry and prose, vampire imagery in German and Swiss literature and film, the Croatian emigration in Canada, new perspectives on foreign language acquisition and theatrical elements in Tolstoy's short fiction. Jazz is an eclectic medium and We're from Jazz, likewise, offers samples from a broad selection of fascinating cultural material. The collection comes in honor of Nicholas V. Galichenko, a much-respected and beloved teacher of Russian language, literature and film at the University of Victoria. These essays are offered by colleagues and former students of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria in recognition of Nick's many contributions to teaching, scholarship and community. "A lively and informative collection that reflects Galichenko's wide-ranging interests. Everyone who loves central and east European culture should find something of value here." Denise J. Youngblood, Professor of History, University of Vermont "The title of this nicely assembled collection, through its allusion to the well-known Soviet musical comedy, wonderfully captures Professor Galichenko's true passions: jazz and cinema. " Bohdan Y. Nebesio, Film Studies, Brock University