This 1941 photo documents a pile of ruins in the very center of Kyiv, which is now Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), on the corner of Institute and Khreshchatyk streets. The big ruined house is the “Ginzburg...
Historically, Ukraine is not exceptional, but it is “hyper typical” of major trends in the last 100 years, states Snyder. He points out three moments of the 20th century and reveals how they are connected to Ukrainian history:...
Sometimes the driest of statistics throw a harsher light on reality than any longer discussion. According to official statistics, during World War II, Soviet tribunals convicted more than 2.5 million Soviet citizens, condemned 472,000 for...
In the French village of Oradour (June 1944), Nazis murdered 642 inhabitants; in the Czech village of Lidice (June, 1943) – 320, in the Belarusian village of Khatyn (March 1943) – 149 (according to contemporary German data...
Instead, the Ukrainian independence struggle looks set to be airbrushed out of the Bolshevik spectacular, much as it has been for the past hundred years. Ukrainian history will remain the great unknown of the European narrative. This is...
For Moscow, the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols which divided Eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin remains far more important than many believe because it was the first time a major power recognized that the USSR...
There are many Stalinist crimes Russian writers either pass over in silence or minimize, but one that is especially rarely discussed is the fate of those Russians who fought on the side of the Germans against the Soviet Union and of White...
On 19 May 2017, Germany’s Green party initiated debates on the topic of Germany’s historical responsibility towards Ukraine. The party prepared a draft resolution in support of Ukraine which was submitted to the foreign...
For Russians, Victory Day is an ever more important date; but they act as if May 9 was the end of history and fail to see that the Soviet Army which first liberated Eastern Europe from the Nazis then became an occupying force for almost...
We don’t want to eliminate May 9; it will always be a day of remembrance and a moment to celebrate Victory Day over Nazism. The only thing that we’d like to do is move official celebrations and events to May 8. We have absolutely no...
On 11 October, a three-day meeting of the Synod, or church council, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, finished in Istanbul. It gave further confirmation that Ukraine is on the path to receiving church independence from Moscow – and healing...
