Fast Down the Rails. The Turbulent History of Electric Trams

The Ukrainian Week offers a series of articles about technological inventions which have changed human history and induced civilizational progress and modernization of the economic, social and cultural landscape. This week’s story tells about trams, the first urban means of transport.

Stalin’s “Surgery”

Several operations against national minorities were carried out alongside class-based persecutions and purges among ranking party members in Ukraine

Firsthand Experience of the KGB’s “Refinement”

The Ukrainian Week presents Vasyl Lisoviy’s investigative memoirs about the repressive techniques used by the KGB against the activists of the 1960-1980s dissident movement in Ukraine.

The Khersones Betrayal

In July 1942, the soviet command shamefully retreated from Sevastopol, leaving its defenders to the mercy of fate

The Predecessors of European Knights

On their long way from the North Caucasus to Africa, Alans laid the foundation of medieval military tradition in Europe and inspired British mythology

Symbols of Independence

Ukraine’s national flag, emblem and anthem have a long history and national status but have yet to become true national symbols

Archetypes From the Past

The Ukrainian government has implemented just one of all the “reforms” it declared two years ago – cultural policy in Ukraine has returned to the Russian-Soviet framework

Yaromyr Mykytko — Third-generation Political Prisoner

His earliest childhood memory is a long gloomy corridor in a barracks. Yaromyr Mykytko was born on 12 March 1953 in Prokopievsk, Kemerovo Region. When he was three, his family returned to Galicia but his parents kept their Siberia experience to themselves for a long time

How Ukrainians Survived the War

The Ukrainian Week interviewed eyewitnesses of the Second World War, and their stories are far removed from the idolised image of the “Great Patriotic War”

The Voices of the Unheard

Oral history does not only wipe out the barriers between professional historians and simple people, but can also become a powerful instrument for desovietization

Viacheslav Lypynsky: Champion of Conservatism

He formulated the idea of a political nation and advocated an aristocratic path toward building a Ukrainian state

Where Did “Ukraine” Come From?

‘Ukraine’, as a title, gained its political and geographical role in the 19th century

A Continental Union

The Treaty of Rapallo between the Weimar Republic and Soviet Russia paved the way to a revival of German military power after the First World War

A Battle For the Past

Jerzy Eisler talks about the role of history in contemporary Poland and the country's experience with de-sovietization

Legionnaires’ Day

The aggravation of Russia–Latvia relations over history proves again that conflicts stemming from memories of WWII have not abated

European Memory Gaps

Varying interpretations of 20th century history prevent the movement to acknowledge Communist crimes from spreading throughout Europe

Gender in the USSR

The omnipresent “managing and leading force” of soviet gender norms dominated relationships between men and women in the Soviet Union, leaving a heavy imprint on their development and evolution

The Rise of the Celts

In the early 21st century, the words Celts and Celtic became entrenched in the arsenal of pop culture as well as commercially successful for everything from beer and cigarettes to basketball teams

Parallel Struggle

90 years ago, when Ireland gained its independence from Great Britain, Ukraine lost its independence on the other side of Europe

“The Black Sea Will Smile”

Ukraine’s Navy, set up 20 years ago, is struggling to survive

A Guide to the Scythian World

A golden pectoral saved poet and archeologist Borys Mozolevsky from prison in Mordvia

The Land of Oium

Despite their short sojourn in Ukrainian territory, Gothic tribes made a large contribution to the culture of ancient Ukraine

Fighting Over the Goths

Who has the right to claim Gothic heritage in 20th-century? This becomes part of an ideological struggle in Ukraine

Missed Opportunity

In March 1917 a wave of national revival surged over Dnieper Ukraine, only to be wasted later by the Central Rada

From the Imperial to the National Army

How Russian Army units were made Ukrainian

Unknown Eastern Ukraine

In the 1930s, millions of Ukrainians were killed and russified in Eastern Slobozhanshchyna* and the North Caucasus