It seems that Banksy has just appeared in Lviv We already know that in these difficult times, the world's most famous street artist has chosen Ukraine. Art as resistance. Art as solidarity. Art as voice. When the world watches, artists speak. What's your message? 🇺🇦

Please meet Azazello, hippie, poet, artist and narkoman, who is sadly no longer with us but whose papers found their way to The Wende Museum in LA and have been digitalised and contextualised by a team of scholars. It is an unusual ride into an exotic and marginalised world: azazello-archive.com/en/

Angelinos, please come to our launch of the digital Azazello archive at the Wende Museum on November 19. Azazello was a hippie, poet, drug addict, artist and contrarian, whose archive miraculously survived him, providing a rare glimpse into the Soviet underground. wendemuseum.org/event/azazel...

RIP Igor Palmin, photographer of Soviet life both over- and underground and chronicler of late socialism in a quiet yet piercing manner. I did a podcast for the Barbican in 2018, where his work was part of the Another Kind of Life exhibition. www.barbican.org.uk/s/anotherkin.... Picture from 1991.

RIP Igor Palmin, photographer of Soviet life both over- and underground and chronicler of late socialism in a quiet yet piercing manner. I did a podcast for the Barbican in 2018, where his work was part of the Another Kind of Life exhibition. www.barbican.org.uk/s/anotherkin.... Picture from 1991.

Vielen Dank an die Dame mit moralischem Kompass und Zivilcourage.

Die andere Seite der Medaille. zweiteroktober90.de

Mass shootings in the US, per Gun Violence Archive: 2015: 332 2016: 383 2017: 347 2018: 335 2019: 414 2020: 611 2021: 689 2022: 644 2023: 659 2024: 503 So far in 2025...324 mass shootings in just 272 days. We do not have to keep living like this.

RIP Al Rieber, professor and teacher extraordinaire at many places but latest at CEU. His biography is worthy of a book. His reputation as an Mensch is legendary among students and colleagues. He will be missed, not least because he represented a time when Russian history was a happier place.

RIP Al Rieber, professor and teacher extraordinaire at many places but latest at CEU. His biography is worthy of a book. His reputation as an Mensch is legendary among students and colleagues. He will be missed, not least because he represented a time when Russian history was a happier place.

Solidarity for my colleague F. Davies, whose nuanced discussion about oversights in imperial Russian history was compared by the editors of Ab Imperio as akin to Putin’s historical frame. No critique can be as damming as what the editors did to themselves by twisting words and turning personal.

There is something particularly brutal about killing the very young and/ or the very old. Russia has just broken through another shameful barrier. In full daylight and with no shame. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/w...

Yesterday’s lunar eclipse over Kyiv 💙💛 If you value our work, enjoy what we create, and want to help us reach new heights, we invite you to become a sponsor by clicking on the link vist.ly/463b3

Every authoritarian regime that embraced this aesthetic inflicted violence and chaos on its society

OTD in 1989 around 2 million people formed a human chain through Estonia, Lithuania & Latvia to beg mother Moscow not to remove its troops which were genuinely invited in as a result of nothing to do with Molotov Ribbentrop pact OTD 50 years prior...

,..wenn wir irgendetwas beim Nationalsozialismus anerkennen, dann ist es die Anerkennung, dass ihm zum ersten Mal in der deutschen Politik die restlose Mobilisierung der menschlichen Dummheit gelungen ist." Kurt Schumacher 13. Oktober 1895- 20. August 1952 

What is so annoying from a historian’s point of view about current Russia coverage is how journalism declares the Cold War as won or lost. The Cold War East did not only consist of Russia. Many former Soviet bloc countries consider themselves to have been winners in 1989/1991.

Most comments on the Alaska summit have concentrated on Trump gobbling up Putin’s manipulative flattery. But there was also something odd about Putin. His domestic audiences know him as a poker face. In Alaska he gestured and grimaced a lot. Almost like he had been coached to act more ‘American’.

There was a time when Lavrov was considered a serious diplomat. … Is he consciously aping Melania Trump in sending his true thoughts via an item of clothing. Or is he referencing Vance’s attack on Zelensky’s lack of office wear? Is this the Russian war attire? The mind boggles. Not in a good way.

Lawrow kommt im CCCP-UdSSR-TShirt. Russland will eine neue Weltordnung, bekämpft den Rechtsstaat + Freiheit und verstößt jeden Tag gegen das Völkerrecht. Und AfD/Rechtsextreme + rechte Blogger schweigen 🤐 , weil sie Putin lieben und Diktaturen eigentlich ganz geil finden.

Fascinating interpretation by Dugin of Perestroika as a headless chicken (his post is shown as a screenshot) running but not functioning. Fascinating parallels also made with 1917 and today. All is not well in the land of the Russian nationalists.

Maurene Comey's goodbye note to SDNY colleagues:

Catch the recording of our recent discussion on how propaganda fuels Russia’s war against Ukraine—shaping narratives, justifying aggression, and undermining democracy. Featuring @teresafm.bsky.social @jcaf.bsky.social and Volodymyr Yermolenko, moderated by @flampert.bsky.social

Wir freuen uns auch. Auf eine erkenntnisreiche und produktive Zeit, in der wir uns der Perebudova widmen - altbekannt als ukrainische Perestroika und doch ganz neu gesehen. Und mit Franziska wird es garantiert nie langweilig werden! Willkommen.

My heart breaks for Kyiv … I spent many happy summers in Kyiv, walking its shady streets, listening to its buskers and sitting on benches looking over the river. Kyiv has always been funnier, prettier and more relaxed than Moscow. No surprise Putin hates it so much.

Wenn Trump mit Putin telefoniert, kommt man der Waffenruhe immer einen Schritt näher.

We had a famous visitor at the institute. We did our best to make sure that Ukraine would remain on his mind - and possibly more. He then stumbled into our Europast summer school - to the horror of his security detail. Time will tell if our pleas for more funding for Ukr. researchers will be heard.

Russians hit an occupied passenger train in Ukraine with a ballistic missile. Over 300 injured, more than 15 confirmed dead. If you have anything to spare here is a link to a program by a reputable non-profit to provide the Ukrainian military air defense equipment. savelife.in.ua/dronopad/mai...

A 'Knowledge in Crisis' (@knowledgecrisis.bsky.social) public philosophy event at CEU in Vienna: Propaganda: Shaping Narratives in Times of War, with philosophers @teresafm.bsky.social, Volodymyr Yermolenko & historian @jcaf.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkzH...

Our night in Kyiv under drones and ballistic missiles. There are several people injured. In Ukraine, we experience the worst of Russia's agression every day, through Moscow's daily continuation of its crimes.

I only wish I had had the chance to sign it too!

So ASEEES has finally been designated ‘undesirable’ by the Russian government. Surprising only that it took so long. It did not quite manage the ‘terrorist’ label the German Association for Eastern European Studies obtained last year. Unprecedented even in Soviet times. aseees.org/news/aseees-...

Crimea Platform asked me to become Appaz Kurtamet's mentor, which I gladly accepted. He is being illegally held and must be released immediately. In Russia, he is being subjected to torture. His human rights are being violated. Please share the story of Appaz Kurtmaet and other prisoners. 2/3

A Chat GPT tale of fraud, challenge and redemption in several acts. It would be funny if it would not be scary. And tragic. I decided to see what AI was all about by letting it write a short essay about a topic that I knew well: Soviet hippies. What got back was…

Tomorrow in Vienna talking about current and past wars: events.ceu.edu/2025-05-05/p...

Mein Interview heute mit dem @ndr zu den Recherchen Tagesschau @manuelbewarder zu russischer Sabotage und den Anschlägen auf #DHLFlüge www.ndr.de/nachrichten/...

Lecturer in Central and Eastern European History (including Russia/Soviet), Post-1800- UCL - History Department #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMT327/l...

Der tschechische Außenminister Jan Lipavský beschreibt die russische "Waffenruhe": "wie einen Hungerstreik zwischen Frühstück und Mittag erklären und dann auch noch Bonbons essen". Putins Vorgehen sei ein Medienstunt, der mit der brutalen Realität der russischen Kriegsführung nichts zu tun habe.

Happy Easter!

Dnipro right now💔

Congratulations to the editors of/contributors to this volume, hot off the press. Good work!

Looking forward to this fascinating discussion on Propaganda with @teresafm.bsky.social, Volodymyr Yermolenko (@ukraineworld.bsky.social) & @jcaf.bsky.social. Join us in Vienna if you can!

Die Hölle russischer Besatzung. Der "Kampf für Freiheit", "unsere Werte" klingt in Talkshows und politischen Reden oft abstrakt. Aber es geht um diese sehr konkrete Hölle, darum, die Menschen vor unfassbarem Terror durch die russischen Besatzer zu schützen. en.zona.media/article/2025...

Things people who were in Moscow in the 1990s and read The Exile knew a long time ago….

I interviewed Skobov for my hippie book, since he was the anarchist part of a hippie commune in Leningrad in late 70s. He was very sharp and very brave. He should have been a Russian Bernie Saunders. Instead he has the honour to have been imprisoned by all Russian regimes of his life time.

Russia is a peaceful country, surrounded by ceasefires.

Update: surprisingly feisty q and a. High concentration of elderly mansplaining and alternative truth telling. Yet audience fights back worst excesses and rudeness. All delivered in charming Viennese.

Now in the Kreisky Forum in Vienna. The times are bleak. The women are smart. Franziska Davies dissects recent events. Fazit: terrible as it is, we now face the reality of possible scenarios we knew for many months. Neither suits nor ties nor apologies altered or will alter the course of events.

Trump has set up a devilish game for Zelensky: keep holding your head high and feel responsible for the Ukrainian deaths caused by lack of US support or grovel, apologize and resign in the hope for a few more Patriots for your country. Truly evil.

Amazing how many men in politics think that democracy and freedom should be sacrificed for a suit and tie.