Blog

If “ dark tourism” is not an entirely new phenomenon, I would guess it has at least become more popular in the twenty-first century. The subject has stuck in my mind since last week’s HUSI lecture on Chernobyl given by Dr. Plokhii, after which one of our...

When I’m in a new place, the first thing I like to do is get a sense of the geographical area: what it looks like and what lives on (or in) it. I carry around a ludicrously heavy camera – which I do not really know how to use – in case a particularly...

Twenty-five years ago, Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union, adopting an Act which established it as a separate state. Since then, August 24th has been celebrated in Ukraine as Independence Day, marking a significant event in the political...

Art. Humanity has tried to define art for centuries, but we still have not come up with a concrete definition. For me, art is expression. The class ‘Ukrainian for Reading Knowledge’ served as a space for creative expression and helped me strengthen my...

Notes on the lecture by Jessica Zychowicz On Wednesday, July 20th, Dr. Jessica Zychowicz, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, gave a talk at HURI on rethinking post-colonialism in contemporary Ukraine through the lenses of media and...

Oleh Lysheha is not particularly well known among the general readership, despite his stature within intellectual, literary, and academic circles. Lysheha’s poetry should perhaps be better known than it is, speaking personally based on the impact it had...

It’s been a little more than two years after the Revolution of Dignity took place in Ukraine in 2014 and I'm still having a hard time processing and digesting it. Those events were so spontaneous, chaotic, and swift that a lot of effort is required in...