“We talk about topics that were taboo for a long time and many of them do not fit into the current national canon of history either. As a result, people often keep silent about them or speak about them reluctantly. But the time for a serious conversation about difficult topics came long ago.”

Virginia Woolf on friendship: “Here we sit in dark tunnels, tapping on the walls” www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Aid to Ukraine from 2022-2026 was a rounding error. We used more in the first two weeks of the Iran war than we provided in the 4 years of aid to Ukraine.

With Russia's full-scale invasion, contextualizing Ukraine’s Soviet past became more complicated than ever. An essay I wrote for @thepointmag.bsky.social looks at what its meant for the museum holding Ukraine's largest collection of Soviet socialist realist art. thepointmag.com/corresponden...

brass solidarity band performing “stand by me” in the streets of whittier next to alex pretti’s memorial. the crowd started chanting “the people united will never be defeated” so they incorporated it into the song. i love minneapolis

“Granny’s apartment at least has a gas stove, meaning we can pour boiling water into rubber hot water bottles and tie them to her body. “Why can’t anyone do anything to make Putin stop?” she cries, complaining that the cold gnaws into every bone of her body.” www.politico.eu/article/ukra...

The translation of Nesterenko was provided by Simon Pirani, the editor of “Voices Against Putin’s War,” a collection of court speeches by modern Russian dissidents published by Resistance Books. You can find all the info and a link to a free PDF here: ukraine-solidarity.org/voices-again...

Worthwhile critique herein: It is "striking how few thinkers propose to bring psychoanalysis into politics as a technical craft that might make us more effective political agents, more endowed with the judgment & tact required to engage our fellow humans." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"In this war there exists a vast territory of silence – a space for people’s opinions, doubts and decisions, which find no path to public expression, and may not even be fully formed as political positions or judgements." www.equator.org/articles/the...

“For Freud, repetition is a bad thing. He used the word to describe a pathological compulsion to reenact a trauma... Jonathan, however, proposed that there is a good, healthy kind of repetition that takes place between an exemplar and the person whose admiration they inspire.”

Last month in Kyiv, I met up with the writer Artem Chapeye, a pacifist who joined the army in 2022 remains there. His decision exemplifies how Ukrainians are taking matters into their own hands, no matter what Western leaders do. @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2018...

Free link: on.ft.com/435Cvfi Ukraine hit Russian energy sites with US help

“Psychoanalysis is itself a manifestation of love." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/b...

Ukrainian gymnast Sasha, who lost her leg to Russian shelling in 2022, just won gold at the Black Sea Cup.

Netanyahu’s onslaught against Gaza has been genocidal, but Israelis refuse to see it. This has historical parallels—and roots in Israel’s foundation By Omer Bartov October 8, 2025 www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...

Striking how far the Russian drones penetrated into Poland. These were no mere trespasses near Polish borders. Map from @thestudyofwar.bsky.social

Russia looted his artworks and killed his great-grandson, an artist. 🧵 1/4 ⬇️

Book cover designs by Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell (c.1930) #WomensArt

Interesting thing about Colbert—something that sets him apart from the other late-night comedy hosts over the decades: Paar, Carson, Leno, Letterman, Conan, the Jimmys, et al.—is his willingness to be entirely candid (while remaining winsome) about his thoughts & feelings on morally weighty matters.

I’m delighted to be in Vienna this June as a guest of the Institute of Human Sciences, where I’ll be getting some pages together for another nonfiction book project about Ukraine. Drop a line if in Wien! www.iwm.at/fellow/megan...

"A lot of problematic stuff is sold under the guise of 'help'. Everybody wants to help. What does that mean?" [Smiles]. revisionsjournal.com/en/page/beat...

There are few chronicles of life in Ukraine in the 1990s (a fascinating period), and the novel ROCK, PAPER, GRENADE by Artem Chekh, published this week in English translation by @sevenstories.bsky.social, is unforgettable. IMO one of contemporary Ukrainian literature's best showings in the US.

💢 Zelenskyy said Russia violated the “Easter truce” 2,935 times: 96 assaults, 1,882 attacks on Ukrainian positions (812 with heavy weapons), and over 950 FPV drone strikes. Ukraine’s response, he said, will “mirror” Russian actions.

This message just went out to Ukrainians who were told they had to immediately leave the US "in error"

Kira Muratova retrospective coming to Lincoln Center in NYC! www.filmlinc.org/daily/film-a...

I recently saw an extraordinary film by the Ukrainian artist Dana Kavelina, It Can't be that Nothing Can Be Returned. Increasingly I think the best ways to capture the agony of the full scale war are to reach for metaphor, fantasy and surrealism as this work does www.instagram.com/p/DHKb3V4O_h...

I’m getting word that the International and Foreign Language Education Office at the Dept. of Ed is very likely being liquidated. In my career I’ve been a part of three successful Title VI NRC/FLAS grants, and wrote/directed a Fulbright-Hays program in 2011. A building block of my career crumbling.

Jealous of Berkeley dwellers who get to access to this wonderful upcoming survey of Ukrainian cinema bampfa.org/program/ukra...

"Between Tatlin and Malevich, El Lissitzky and Anatol Petrytsky, & the Alexanders Archipenko and Dovzhenko, there was barely a Russian avant-garde without artists of Ukrainian heritage. This show confirms that some things are so overdue they become punctual again." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Recommended: “What has undermined [Slavic Studies] is less a practical emphasis on Russia than an intellectual Russocentrism that takes two primary forms: one that focuses disproportionately on a minority oppositional culture in the metropole that looks familiar & sympathetic to western eyes…”

Recommended: Top Ukrainian filmmaker Oleksiy Radynski on his work on “landscapes and their transformation, what the landscape says to us, and how the empire manifests itself through the landscape.” www.documentary.org/online-featu...

I find this article deeply frustrating. While, yes, Brighton Beach is home to many people originally born in Soviet Ukraine, it is overwhelming composed to people who left during and in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union and now have U.S. citizenship. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/n...

I put together a quick set of suggestions for ways to support Ukraine in the wake of Trump-Zelensky press conference yesterday.

Whether American policy is pro-Ukrainian or anti-Ukrainian, the Ukrainians pursue a consistent policy of sovereign self-defense. Here’s how that proves that they are just an American proxy. by John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs, and Vladimir Putin

I used this service to migrate over all of my tweets from X prior to deleting my account. It cost less than $5 and was simple. That + downloading of data from X makes it keep most of what was valuable about the platform without contributing to Musk's bottom line. Recommended.

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Excellent from @hannaperekhoda.bsky.social: "Capitalist reason, with its cult of unlimited growth and profit, puts profit above all else...if this dynamic is not broken, Ukraine will have no future. But let's be clear: in such a world, nobody will have a future." voxeurop.eu/en/hanna-per...

Publishers, rights managers, literary agents, and other publishing professionals - check out this fellowship program to Book Arsenal in Kyiv this spring! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I'm happy to be chairing the AAUS prize committee for book of the year in Ukrainian studies. Please submit nominations of your favorite scholarly works on Ukraine published in 2023 or 2024 by March 1! https://ukrainianstudies.org/nominate-a-book-for-the-aaus-prize/

I'm happy to be chairing the AAUS prize committee for book of the year in Ukrainian studies. Please submit nominations of your favorite scholarly works on Ukraine published in 2023 or 2024 by March 1! ukrainianstudies.org/nominate-a-b...

I wrote about Neil Gaiman, and the women accusing him of sexual coercion, assault and abuse. www.vulture.com/article/neil...

Traditional Polish folk embroidery, woman's bodice, hand and machine-sewn, c.1920 #WomensArt

Butkevych: "For me, it was a tragedy that I had to pick up a gun. But it would have been even more tragic not to." www.zeit.de/politik/ausl...

Great, wonderfully clear and evenhanded interview with @HavryshkoMarta. https://jacobin.com/2024/12/ukraine-myths-wwii-nationalism-nazis

Hey New York, we've got something special planned on Jan 9 at Ukrainian Institute of America. I'll join friends & fellow journalists Simon Shuster & Sasha Maslov to discuss our many years of reporting on Ukraine & Russia's war against the country. Tickets here: ukrainianinstitute.org/event/in-con...

Admired the thought-provoking analysis of the Ukrainian-language dubbing in La Palisiada (which I liked!) in this piece, among other things...

“He tried to describe the endless grind of his work, but a helpless anger seemed to overtake him. How do you convey the desperation of trying to keep something as vast and essential as a water system alive?” www.isolarii.com/yevgenia-bel...

An excellent opportunity for women journalists to report from #Ukraine. have a look at that. #Journalism Via @colinlebedev.cpesr.fr iwmf.submittable.com/submit/553a5...

En route to Boston for @aseeestudies and picking out my favorite pics of Rybachuk and Melnychenko's suppressed Memory Park to share during my presentation. Come and talk with me and others about late Soviet Kyiv!

En route to Boston for ASEEES and picking out my favorite pics of Rybachuk and Melnychenko's suppressed Memory Park to share during my presentation. Come and talk with me and others about late Soviet Kyiv!