Commentary

During the early hours of the Russo-Ukrainian War, when it became clear that Vladimir Putin was mounting a full scale invasion, rather than just a much anticipated minor incursion, most, though not all, of the leading players in Euro-Atlantic political, military, academic and media circles took to the airwaves to make some rather dire forecasts and to dispense equally dire advice to the Ukrainians. It was predicted that border cities in the north and east, as well as coastal cities in the south, might fall within a day or two and that the capital Kyiv would be forced to surrender within a week. President Zelensky was advised to move the seat of government to Ukraine’s westernmost large city, Lviv, or, better yet, to set up shop in exile. The Ukrainian armed forces, in turn, were told to head for the Carpathian Mountains and convert to insurgency-style warfare...

I wish to begin my remarks by emphasizing that I am not a scholar or an academic and have not prepared dissertations or conducted formal presentations on this evening’s topic before. I am, however, a student of politics and have been involved in both Canadian and Ukrainian political life most of my adult life. This, in turn, has formulated my political thought and has led me to certain points of view, which you may or may not share. In any case, because we are focusing today on Yevhen Konovalets, a prominent figure in the Ukrainian nationalist movement of the 1920’s and 30’s, I thought it logical to start my presentation with my observations on the terms nationalism and patriotism, fundamental in my mind to this discussion. There is no one agreed upon meaning of nationalism. The term nationalism often has a negative connotation and has often been associated with dangerous and right-wing movements in history like fascism, violent separatist movements like the Kurds or the Basques, or racist movements such as white nationalism...

One of the streets in Hoholiv—a town just east of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv—bears the name of Mikhail Lermontov, a 19th-century Russian poet. Lermontov never visited Ukraine, and only a few of his poems touch on Ukrainian topics. But streets all over Ukraine are still named for him and other Russian cultural figures, a heritage of its Soviet imperial past. Hoholiv, which saw heavy fighting in March, similarly honors Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Aleksandr Pushkin. Naming streets in every city, town, and village is just one instrument for an empire to designate and control its colonial space. Every prominent Russian name was a way to exclude a Ukrainian one. Street names were a tool to erase local memory. Russia’s literary greats, however, didn’t just lend their names to their country’s imperial project. Much more than is commonly recognized, their writings also helped shape, transport, and ingrain Russia’s imperial ideology and nationalist worldview...

Ukrainians have changed more since Putin launched his full-scale aggression against Ukraine in February than they had in the previous 30 years, a development that has transformed their society but is one that Russians as yet have failed to recognize, according to Yevhen Golovakha, the director of the Institute of Sociology at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. In his words, “what Ukraine was not able to do in the course of the 30 years of its independent existence, the war has done.” It has changed the attitude of Ukrainians to their state, their society and their future. Golovakha draws his conclusions by...

The first episode would involve those descendants of Kyiv's survivors who found shelter in Zaporizhia and whom the contemporary Ukrainian farmer deemed worth mentioning as his spiritual mentors the Kozaks ('Kozaky'). The Zaporizhian 'Host', as the Kozaks came to be known collectively, developed, in the 15th and 16th century, into a free-wheeling, land owning elite military caste on the frontier of Europe that eventually helped create the second iteration of the Ukrainian state (the Kyiv principality being the first) known as the Hetmanate (1647) and then withdrew back to their home region to let the Hetmanate find its own firm ground without their interference. Lo and behold, in 1683, the Ottoman Empire decided to make a major move on Europe - conquer its very heartland - and arrived at the gates of Vienna, seat of ...

A bloodied shirt, tattered pants, leather shoes sliced open and flesh shaved off by razor-wire are what I endured while getting a closer look at South Ossetia, a Russian-occupied region of Georgia. This rendering took place under the gaze of a nearby Russian watchtower, whose inhabitants thankfully chose not to sally forth. Meanwhile their Georgian counterparts, deployed further back from this sleepy borderline, patrolling a once-important regional highway now little more a weed-covered strip of broken asphalt, were only slightly more curious. Yet, like every Georgian I met, they expressed great sympathy for Ukraine on learning that I was a visiting Canadian professor of Ukrainian heritage. Having suffered a Russian invasion in August 2008, and the subsequent amputation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, their country stands with Ukraine, especially as Ukrainians confront the genocidal agenda of Vladimir Putin, the KGB man in the...

During the first hours of the Russo-Ukrainian War, when it became clear that Vladimir Putin was mounting a full scale 'invasion' rather than any one of the smaller anticipated 'incursions' into Ukraine, most - though not all - of the leading players in Euro-Atlantic' political, military, think tank and media circles (for the Russians, the euphemistic 'West') took to the airwaves to make some rather dire forecasts and dispense some rather dire advice to the Ukrainians. It was predicted that border cities in the north and east as well as coastal cities in the south might fall within a day or two and that the capital Kyiv would be forced to surrender within a week. President Zelensky was advised to move the seat of government to Ukraine's westernmost large city, Lviv, or better (worse) yet, set up shop in exile. The Ukrainian armed forces, in turn, were told to head for the Carpathian mountains and convert to insurgency-style warfare. As the hours turned into...

Today is a very holy day for Christians throughout the world. In the West, today is Easter Sunday. In the East, today we celebrate Palm Sunday. I was baptized a Ukrainian Catholic. My wife and I were married in a Ukrainian Catholic Church in Kyiv, and our children were all baptized in this faith as well. Our church has a Patriarch (i.e. a separate hierarchy from Roman Catholics), but we recognize the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. In Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholic Church follows the Julian calendar which means Easter will be celebrated next week. Although the Ukrainian Catholic Church is autonomous, we are in communion with the Pope. This week that communion was shaken to its core. On the Roman Catholics’ Good Friday, at the insistence of Pope Francis, during the annual Way of the Cross procession held in the Roman Colosseum, at station 13, the cross was held jointly by two women: one Russian and one Ukrainian. The liturgic gesture was meant to symbolize reconciliation and hope for peace. Peace and reconciliation are both noble...

I have written before that I am a man of conflicted faith. Yet even though I lecture as a professor of political geography, I cannot but bear witness to Ukraine’s agony through the lens of my religion, the faith of my Ukrainian Catholic ancestors. To that I confess, wholeheartedly. And so Ukraine’s tortures have become, as it were, my daily bread. I eat its distress, yet gag as I do, symbolically consuming the flesh and blood of the many now being murdered by Russia’s legions. The land of my predecessors has again become a Golgotha, a place of skulls. This is all Vladimir Putin’s doing. It is happening as we approach the most sacred day in any Christian’s calendar, Easter, marking the triumphant Resurrection from the dead of Jesus, the Christ...

“When you’re at war, you’re at war,” the saying goes, and if so, you have to accept the implications. So too in the present circumstance. The United States and its NATO allies are engaged in a proxy war with Russia. They are supplying thousands of munitions and hopefully doing much else—sharing intelligence, for example—with the intent of killing Russian soldiers. And because fighting is, as the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, “a trial of moral and physical forces through the medium of the latter,” we must face a fact: To break the will of Russia and free Ukraine from conquest and subjugation, many Russian soldiers have to flee, surrender, or die, and the more and faster the better...