Ukrainian turns

According to the official count, no candidate won a majority in the first round of the Ukrainian presidential elections, although the opposition charged electoral fraud in favour of Viktor Yanukovich. The result of the runoff vote – which took place three weeks later, on November 21 – was, according to the election commission, 49,46 per cent of the votes for Yanukovich and 46,61 per cent for Viktor Yuschenko. However, there is mounting evidence of massive electoral falsification and, as Timothy Snyder writes in a commentary, “by every reasonable estimation, the democratic reformer Viktor Yuschenko has won the presidential election.”

The events that we can follow in Ukraine these days mark a turning point – most commentators agree on this. But which way the country will turn is not yet clear.

Eurozine will during the next weeks publish a selection of articles commenting on and analysing the recent developments in Ukraine. These articles are somewhat different from the texts we normally publish: most of them are shorter than the usual Eurozine essay, and they deal with a situation that changes from moment to moment. However, these shorter articles also put the current events in Ukraine into a historical, cultural and political context.

Among the articles published so far are:

Tatiana Zhurzhenko
Is Ukraine heading for breakup? (de)
Parts of Ukraine threaten to seek autonomy from the capital Kiev. Tatiana Zhurzhenko looks at what is behind these threats. How big is the risk of Ukraine falling apart? [2001-11-30]

Timothy Snyder
Ukraine: an opportunity for Europe (en)
There are moments in history when one must think broadly and ambitiously. To secure democracy in Ukraine is certainly in the interest of the European Union, writes Timothy Snyder. It is also a test for a Europe that wishes to play a role in the world. [2001-11-26]

Roman Szporluk
The crisis in Ukraine: a historian’s perspective (en)
A historian knows that there are certain turning points in history when resistance to the ruling powers is justified and indeed is a moral duty of the citizen, says Roman Szporluk, Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard. [2004-11-24]

Tymofiy Havryliv
The second turning point (de)
What we see in the Ukraine today is a second turning point. Without a democratic and European Ukraine, Europe risks being brought back to the times of the Cold War, writes Tymofiy Havryliv. [2004-11-24]

Oksana Zabuzhko
Ukraine’s Solidarity (en)
Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko walks the streets of Kiev and witnesses an unprecedented upsurge of national solidarity. “To put it simply,” she writes, ‘they’ are the power – the most widely hated power in Ukraine since Soviet times. And ‘we’ – we are the people.” [first published 2004-11-22]

Peter Lodenius
The Ukraine is in a tug between East and West (en) (sv)
Andrei Pavlishin, editor at the Ukrainian newspaper Lvivska Gazeta, describes how the tax police tries to get to the Ukrainan media. [first published 2004-11-09]

Further articles published by Eurozine‘s partners:

Transit and IWM Fellows focus on Ukraine
Several of the texts above are also available at the website of Eurozine’s partner Transit (IWM).

Eurozine’s Ukrainian partner Ji
Eurozine’s Ukrainian partner Ji publishes translated statements and comments (mainly in English) on their website.

La Republique des idées on Ukraine
Eurozine’s cooperation partner La Republique des idées – a French-based, international “workshop” watching intellectual life and research in social and human sciences in France, Europe and worldwide – publish highly interesting articles (in French), e.g. on the Polish reactions to the crisis after the elections and a background to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine.