When Boris Yeltsin told George Bush in 1991 that the USSR couldn’t exist without Ukraine, he wasn’t referring to the economy: culturally, Russia would have been isolated. Today, the same thesis about Slavic identity is being debated with rockets. Serhii Plokhy on Ukraine’s special role in Soviet and post-Soviet history.
Every era has its myths and rituals, doomed to seem absurd to future generations. Today, we believe in psychology, a suspicious science occupying the realm between belief and emotion.
Climate change affects us all yet not equally. The plight of those forced to migrate as a result – often called ‘climate refugees’, though not officially – has become contested ground between human rights/environmental activists and anti-asylum lobbyists. Could ‘ecologically displaced’, avoiding racialization, xenophobia and division, be a viable alternative?
Giorgia Meloni could become Italy’s first female prime minister. Her political rise is no isolated case: ‘femonationalism’ is flourishing throughout Europe, disguising extremes as the next socially acceptable, mainstream choice.
With Russia closing its gas pipeline to Europe, predicted economic downturns have hit the markets. Skyrocketing energy bills mean production cuts and job losses, as well as a cold winter ahead. With a feared backlash to the Ukrainian cause, discussion between frontline war journalists contextualizes Russia’s power-play tactics.
The war in Ukraine gave Lithuanian anti-gender movements a pretext to postpone debates on civil rights issues, deemed all too divisive in times of geopolitical turmoil. Behind the rhetoric of internal unity, however, is a faithful reproduction of the Kremlin’s crusade against ‘gay propaganda’ and the ‘rotten West’.
From a childhood where fraternity rites were common to playing the lead role in a film about gay love: how a heterosexual, Roma man — a father of three from a traditional community in Ploiești, Romania — overcame his reservations and inhibitions about challenging the masculine norm on-screen.
Taking on imperial knowledge, cultural denial and dogmatic absolutism requires authors who can find their way around tricky narrative strategies, using their wits to juggle cultural preconceptions.
While Ukrainian resistance shows no sign of abating, time plays in Putin’s favour. As for the West, it faces complex diplomatic choices. Clocks are ticking on all sides, but at different speeds.
This year’s Venice Biennale proudly features a Roma Pavilion. But Roma people are still often underrepresented. Romania’s recent population census was an opportunity for minorities to acknowledge their identity, and yet discussion suggests that Roma may officially deny or hide their ethnicity, fearing repercussions. Activists describe why this happens and what is at stake.
After fleeing war-ravaged Kharkiv, many have found refuge and hospitality in Poltava. How does it feel to be an internally displaced person in one’s own city of birth?
A four-day-working-week trial is underway in the UK. The long-awaited attempt to improve the nation’s poor work-life balance and reduce related environmental impacts coincides with the conservative government’s ‘zombie’ prime ministerial handover period – one much more seriously anticipated than the other.
Through the lens of Russian imperial identity, there is no place for dialogue and negotiation: Ukraine can only be assimilated or exterminated. Ukrainian resistance has to be seen for what it really is – a decolonial fight for democracy.
Postmodern ideas have gained the status of absolute truths. Relativism, selectively appropriated into the language of both left and right politics, has metamorphosed into dogma. As oversimplification distorts communication, public trust in scientific fact has eroded. Could renewed ideas of objectivity be a way out?
War memorials and faded names on plaques have lost their power to remind us of battlefield realities in the past. We need new ways to make us remember, force us to think.
While Zelensky calls for Ukrainian civilians to flee eastern Donetsk, under ongoing attack from Russia’s military, Putin maintains that his forces are liberating the region. Propaganda that turns conflict into salvation denies the evidence of war crimes on frontlines. But what lies behind this denial? And how can it be overcome?