Gulnara Bekirova: “Those who stay in Crimea and those who left are in an equally difficult position, albeit their tragedies differ”

In an attempt to understand what Crimea meant and what it means for Ukraine today, to look at important moments in the history of the peninsula and Crimean Tatars, to define the foundation of Crimean Tatar identity, and to analyze the prospects of Crimea’s return to Ukraine and its position after de-occupation, The Ukrainian Week speaks to historian and political scientist Gulnara Bekirova

Illusion of a Federation

Russia broke up in 1917, but the Bolsheviks intended to restore the empire – as a springboard to create a "Global Soviet Republic"

Jazz, Memory, and Freedom: Three Little Stories

When as a student I heard Arsenal, the jazz rock band of the Kaliningrad Philharmonic, I was dumbfounded: in Soviet times Russian musicians were playing music that jazz lovers at once identified as being under the influence of Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tear

The Rise and Fall of Russian Wannbes

Most of the crimes against Ukrainians have been at the hands of other Ukrainians. What’s important now is to understand how this phenomenon of the Malorosians or Little Russians happened

The Independence Imperative

When Ukraine declared independence on August 24, 1991, it not only meant the revival of the Ukrainian state—it was the decisive event in the collapse of the totalitarian soviet empire

Tymur Bobrovsky: "We had a chance to present what has been preserved in Chersonese as unique heritage of the world scale"

Ways to protect Ukrainian cultural and historical heritage in the annexed Crimea and frontline areas

The Man Who Never Laid Down Arms

Former UPA fighter shares his story of struggle against the Nazis and NKVD, GULAGs and return to Ukraine

The Many Faces of Tradition

How Ukrainians have developed tolerance for other religions

Great Victories: The Burden of Faking an Empire

Empires are fated to drag along with them a cast iron wreath of invincibility and lead chains of infallibility. An empire can never lose or make a mistake, otherwise, it’s not really an empire

From Munich to Yalta

The beginning and end of World War II brought about political collusions that greatly discredited the leaders of Western democracies

Lilly, The Hetman's Daughter

Yelyzaveta Skoropadska in art, politics and charity in some of the most tragic years of Ukrainian history

Russia Against Europe

Why is Russia so persistently aggressing on Ukraine?

Crimean Anchor

The rationale behind transferring the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954

What Makes Kharkiv Ukrainian

Russia insists that Kharkiv does not belong to Ukraine. Meanwhile, even several waves of Russification failed to make it truly Russian

Odesa: Through Cossacks, Khans and Russian Emperors

The image of today’s Odesa is a product of the variety of ethnic, social and professional groups you wouldn’t have seen often elsewhere in Ukraine: Ukrainian writers and Italian architects, Ukrainian chumaks, the old-time salt traders, and Jewish merchants, Ukrainian sailors and French designers, Ukrainian Cossacks and Russian officials, Ukrainian scholars and Polish revolutionaries, Ukrainian students and Greek entrepreneurs, as well as profiteers, port coachmen and policemen with no distinct ethnic origin. One thing they all had in common was freedom of spirit, ideas and actions.

The 19th Century in Ukraine: Assimilation Impossible

That turbulent period taught Ukrainians that the ideals of national freedom and solidarity must not be squandered on attractive slogans about social equality, “land and freedom” or “land to peasants”

“Our independence was not pure luck, it was inevitable”

International lawyer Volodymyr Vasylenko speaks about the events leading to Ukraine's independence

Stanislav Kulchytsky:“Psychological dependence on Russia turns Ukrainians into Little Russians”

Historian Stanislav Kulchytsky speaks to The Ukrainian Week about why the Kremlin needs Ukraine, what threat the annexation of Crimea poses for Russia, what the essence of the problem in Ukrainian-Russian relations is, and how the political Ukrainian nation is emerging

19th-century Ukraine: Between Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism

Ukrainian sociopolitical movement between the mid-19th and early 20th century seemed to involve only “conscious Ukrainians”. Even then, however, forces existed which had not yet actively declared their pro-Ukrainian nature but had huge sociopolitical potential

Ukrainian State and Elites in the Early Modern Era

The Russian elite now want to restore an empire, based on historical arguments at that. These kinds of arguments once gave rise to the Russian Empire and they will, once shattered, spell an end to it

Modern Ukrainian Conservatism

In 1918, Ukrainian conservatives tried to implement a reform agenda that was free of populism and relied on private property as the foundation of culture and civilization

The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917-18

The Ukrainian Navy in the Crimea has long traditions. In 1771, the Cossacks jointly with the Russian army and with the support of Zaporizhzhian Cossack boats overcame the short-lived resistance of the Turks and Tatars and conquered the peninsula. The tsarist Black Sea fleet was built primarily in the shipyards of Mykolaiv and Kherson, and many Ukrainians were its admirals, officers and seamen. In 1917-18, part of the fleet was Ukrainianized and pledged allegiance to the Central Rada.

Watch Out – Federalization!

Federalization of Ukraine in the past: who, how, when and with what consequences

The Holodomor: Dictated by Communist Doctrine

The 1932-33 Holodomor was a consequence of the Bolsheviks’ efforts to completely eradicate private property

Seeking Justice

U.S. Federal Judge Bohdan A. Futey discusses the international legal precedents that could allow Ukraine to demand recognition of the Holodomor as genocide in an international court

Bread and Law

Ukraine’s economic relations were originally European. So were its social lifestyle and institutions