Introduction to \u3ci\u3eThe Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution\u3c/i\u3e

Introduction and table of contents to The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution by Nicolai N. Petro. Forthcoming, 2023

Chornobyl as an Open Air Museum: A Polysemic Exploration of Power and Inner Self

This study focuses on nuclear tourism, which flourished a decade ago in the Exclusion Zone, a regimented area around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) established in 1986, where the largest recorded nuclear explosion in human history occurred. The mass pilgrimage movement transformed the place into an open air museum, a space that preserves the remnants of Soviet culture, revealing human tragedies of displacement and deaths, and the nature of state nuclear power. This study examines the impact of the site on its visitors and the motivations for their persistence and activities in the Zone, and argues that through photography, cartography, exploration, and discovery, the pilgrims attempt to decode the historical and ideological meaning of Chornobyl and its significance for future generations. Ultimately, the aesthetic and political space of the Zone helps them establish a conceptual and mnemonic connection between the Soviet past and Ukraine’s present and future. Their practices, in turn, help maintain the Zone’s spatial and epistemological continuity. Importantly, Chornobyl seems to be polysemic in nature, inviting interpretations and shaping people’s national and intellectual identities

War and politics. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and refugee crisis on the eastern EU border from the perspective of border studies

Since February 24, 2022, we have been witnessing the next stage of what began in the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War: a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. For the first time in the history of the European Union, the intensive armed conflict is now approaching the border of the EU and Schengen Zone. The consequences of war: the refugee crisis, humanitarian aid, and economic problems have affected EU countries both immediately and directly. While keeping in mind the human tragedy and the tragedy of Ukraine, we would like to address a few important questions from the perspective of regional and border scholars. From this perspective, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine is another stage of the new political order in Europe, preceded by the war in Ukraine that started in 2014, the 2015 migration crisis, 2021 Belarus-EU border crisis, which altogether – from the perspective of the border studies – could be described as re-bordering and securitization of borderlands. In this joint editorial, we address four main questions. Firstly, how we can interpret the Russian invasion in the wider, historical context, taking the frontier thesis as an explanatory category developed by Turner (1994). Secondly, the Ukrainian refugee crisis, in the context of the previous Belarusian-EU border crisis, is a multi-layered issue, where religion, gender, geopolitics, and rationales meet. Thirdly, apart from the military and political actions, war and refugee flux could be seen from the perspective of a grassroots movement of aid. Fourthly, the war in Ukraine brings uncertainty and questions about democracy and peace in Western Europe

Who lost Ukraine? CEPS Commentary, 16 December 2013

In his penetrating look at who lost Ukraine, Ivan Krastev finds that ultimately, everybody got Ukraine wrong. In his view, outsiders need to understand how high the stakes have recently become in the post-Soviet space, where two opposing integration projects are doomed to clash. He concludes that there are only three options left for Ukraine: sign the agreement with the EU, as the majority of Ukrainians want; join Putin’s EurAsEC, as the endangered political elite prefers; or go bankrupt

Living in a “Parallel World”: Disability in Post-Soviet Ukraine

[Excerpt] These are challenges that are familiar to disabled people all over the world. Challenges such as these make many persons with disabilities in Ukraine feel as if they live in a “parallel world,” one separate from that enjoyed by “able-bodied” people. The disabled in Ukraine face both hidden and open discrimination in their daily lives, and they are stigmatized through popular stereotypes of disabled persons as inferior, deformed, and even contaminating. These attitudes stem in part from the Soviet-era policies towards the disabled, which perpetuated such harmful stereotypes. Persons with visible disabilities (i.e., spinal injuries, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, mental problems, and others) were isolated in their homes, hidden from the public and thus made seemingly invisible. Since disability was seen as a defect and as a tragedy, the Soviet regime pursued a policy of compensation. The invisibility of disabled persons positioned them as a non-problem. Their lives were not discussed, and there was practically no public debate about their needs. When attempts were made to rehabilitate people with disabilities, rehabilitation was primarily medical and vocational in nature, an approach that reflects the ideology that the problem is located within the individual, who needs to be changed/improved (i.e., given maximum physical functioning or gainful employment)

Трагедія Бабиного Яру у 1941–1943 рр. (за документами Галузевого державного архіву Служби безпеки України)

The article, based on the documents of Branch state archive of Security service of Ukraine, is the attempt to restore the tragic events that took place in Babyn Yar during September 1941 – November 1943. Documents that had been inaccessible for the researchers until now (especially archival criminal file), gave the possibility to shed the light on important details, such as: course of events, cause of deeds, and attitude of Kyiv citizens toward the tragedy of Babyn Yar. The author analysed the documents of this tragedy without the separation of Jewish tragedy. Paying the last respect to all dead, we should remember, that the death of Jewish population was the part of the total tragedy, which all multinational people of Ukraine went through