On 24 February 2022 Russia turned its military actions against Ukraine which were going on in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine since 2014 into a full-blown, total war. The language of the international media to describe the conflict is unstable: first, a Russian invasion; then, “Russian-Ukrainian war”, then “Russia’s war in Ukraine”, “Russia’s war against Ukraine”, “Ukraine’s war against Russia-backed forces” or a “fratricidal war”. In Russia itself, calling the war anything other than a mere “special operation” carries with it the risk of punishment with 10 years of prison colony. If there is a war, Russian officials say, it is with NATO and the US.
How is Ukrainian identity represented on the streets of Europe, and what are the political functions of this representation? How do Ukrainians think about their past in the light of the present? In what sense have European states, especially Germany, reassessed their past alignments in Europe? And how have historians approached the subject of Ukrainian identity?
In this episode we have two conversations on Russia’s war against Ukraine. First we speak to the photographer and writer Evgeniya Belorusets. She is the co-founder of “Prostory”, a journal for literature, art and politics. Her works move at the intersection of art, literature, journalism and social activism, between document and fiction. In the current war, she has become, in her own words, the “hostage of her own war diary” as she remained in Kyiv throughout the Russian attack. Now she is just back from the Venice Biennale where she has worked with the Ukrainian pavilion.
Our second conversation is with Stefan Troebst, a historian and a Slavicist until recently Professor of East European Cultural History at Leipzig University. He has published widely on the modern cultural, political and legal history of Eastern Europe - editor of a book series Visual Historical Cultures. He also worked as a German member for missions of long duration for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the former Yugoslavia and former USSR.
We are grateful to Lviv-based band Okean Elzy for allowing us to use their single Obiymi (2003), remixed by Dima Zago from Kramatorsk.
Hosts: Dina Gusejnova, Georgios Giannakopoulos
Editorial and production assistants:
Thomas Walsh, Clara Castello, Louis Wong, Zaid Salam
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On 24 February 2022 Russia turned its military actions against Ukraine which were going on in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine since 2014 into a full-blown, total war. The language of the international media to describe the conflict is unstable: first, a Russian invasion; then, “Russian-Ukrainian war”, then “Russia’s war in Ukraine”, “Russia’s war against Ukraine”, “Ukraine’s war against Russia-backed forces” or a “fratricidal war”. In Russia itself, calling the war anything other than a mere “special operation” carries with it the risk of punishment with 10 years of prison colony. If there is a war, Russian officials say, it is with NATO and the US.
How is Ukrainian identity represented on the streets of Europe, and what are the political functions of this representation? How do Ukrainians think about their past in the light of the present? In what sense have European states, especially Germany, reassessed their past alignments in Europe? And how have historians approached the subject of Ukrainian identity?
In this episode we have two conversations on Russia’s war against Ukraine. First we speak to the photographer and writer Evgeniya Belorusets. She is the co-founder of “Prostory”, a journal for literature, art and politics. Her works move at the intersection of art, literature, journalism and social activism, between document and fiction. In the current war, she has become, in her own words, the “hostage of her own war diary” as she remained in Kyiv throughout the Russian attack. Now she is just back from the Venice Biennale where she has worked with the Ukrainian pavilion.
Our second conversation is with Stefan Troebst, a historian and a Slavicist until recently Professor of East European Cultural History at Leipzig University. He has published widely on the modern cultural, political and legal history of Eastern Europe - editor of a book series Visual Historical Cultures. He also worked as a German member for missions of long duration for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the former Yugoslavia and former USSR.
We are grateful to Lviv-based band Okean Elzy for allowing us to use their single Obiymi (2003), remixed by Dima Zago from Kramatorsk.
Hosts: Dina Gusejnova, Georgios Giannakopoulos
Editorial and production assistants:
Thomas Walsh, Clara Castello, Louis Wong, Zaid Salam
Nagorno-Karabakh in history
Against the backdrop of a new war in Nagorno-Karabakh, in this episode we explore the region’s history through the lenses of political conflict as well as cultural interactions. Since 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh brokered an existence as an autonomous region, and the fortunes of its population were supposedly entrusted to international intermediaries, the so-called Minsk group. While the UN Security Council had ruled to restore the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, de facto throughout this period Nagorno-Karabakh was controlled by Armenia. In the autumn of 2020, Azerbaijan carried out a military operation, which resulted in the transfer of a large part of Nagorno-Karabakh, previously controlled by Armenia, to Azerbaijan. Now Armenian refugees have fled from here to Armenia or to Russia, while the Azerbaijani population expelled from Karabakh in the early 1990s is preparing to return. Among the ruins of towns and villages are both Armenian and Azerbaijani cultural monuments, some of which document a kind of coexistence that now seems unimaginable. Our guests speak about the region in relation to the Russian Civil War, Soviet culture of the 1960s, the role of the diasporas, and the impact of Soviet collapse on the Caucasus as a whole. The episode features music by composers and performers from the region.
With
Zaur Gasimov, Senior Research Fellow, Department of History, University of Bonn
Ronald G. Suny, William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan.
Music
Grikor Suni, Ov Dook Sarer (1997 recording, with Armena Marderosian, piano, and Henrik Mihranian, tenor, words by 19th c poet Ghazaros Aghayan) suniproject.org
Bülbül (Murtuza Mammadov), Sevgili canan (1975, Melodiya, words by 12th c poet Nizami)
Grikor Suni, Yete mi Oor (1997 recording, words by 19th c poet Hovhannes Toumanian)
Rashid Beibutov, Armenian folk song (Bulbul- Nightingale) (1971, Melodiya)
International History Now
On 24 February 2022 Russia turned its military actions against Ukraine which were going on in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine since 2014 into a full-blown, total war. The language of the international media to describe the conflict is unstable: first, a Russian invasion; then, “Russian-Ukrainian war”, then “Russia’s war in Ukraine”, “Russia’s war against Ukraine”, “Ukraine’s war against Russia-backed forces” or a “fratricidal war”. In Russia itself, calling the war anything other than a mere “special operation” carries with it the risk of punishment with 10 years of prison colony. If there is a war, Russian officials say, it is with NATO and the US.
How is Ukrainian identity represented on the streets of Europe, and what are the political functions of this representation? How do Ukrainians think about their past in the light of the present? In what sense have European states, especially Germany, reassessed their past alignments in Europe? And how have historians approached the subject of Ukrainian identity?
In this episode we have two conversations on Russia’s war against Ukraine. First we speak to the photographer and writer Evgeniya Belorusets. She is the co-founder of “Prostory”, a journal for literature, art and politics. Her works move at the intersection of art, literature, journalism and social activism, between document and fiction. In the current war, she has become, in her own words, the “hostage of her own war diary” as she remained in Kyiv throughout the Russian attack. Now she is just back from the Venice Biennale where she has worked with the Ukrainian pavilion.
Our second conversation is with Stefan Troebst, a historian and a Slavicist until recently Professor of East European Cultural History at Leipzig University. He has published widely on the modern cultural, political and legal history of Eastern Europe - editor of a book series Visual Historical Cultures. He also worked as a German member for missions of long duration for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the former Yugoslavia and former USSR.
We are grateful to Lviv-based band Okean Elzy for allowing us to use their single Obiymi (2003), remixed by Dima Zago from Kramatorsk.
Hosts: Dina Gusejnova, Georgios Giannakopoulos
Editorial and production assistants:
Thomas Walsh, Clara Castello, Louis Wong, Zaid Salam
