After the Second World War ended, the generation

that fought for the world’s freedom were lauded

as heroes, and rightly so. Unfortunately, the evil

of autocracy which they tried to quell in their own

time has reared its ugly head again. In Ukrainian,

the term ‘цвіт нації’ or ‘ower of the nation’ refers to

such people, the best which a society has to oer. It is

my belief that these individuals are not only ghting

on the front lines of today for a military victory; they

are ghting for their culture on the pages you are

A LETTER FROM

THE EDITOR

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

NOT THE MORNING I IMAGINED

THE CHRISTMAS OF UKRAINE FOR

THE WORD

WHY CHANGE THE TITLE?

THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE

“USEFUL” AND “NON-USEFUL” JEW:

IMBEDDED DOUBLETHINK IN

RUSSIAN SOCIETY

RECLAIMING HISTORY: HOW

RUSSIAN IS ODESA? BALANCING

BETWEEN EMPIRE AND AUTONOMY

MYTH IN THE CITY: COMPARATIVE

URBANISM IN KYIV UNDER

ORTHODOX COSMOLOGY AND

MARXIST IDEOLOGY

THE ARKA SVOBODY

UKRAYINS’KOHO NARODU: A SITE

OF MNEMONIC CONTEST AND THE

RECONFIGURATION OF POWER IN

CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

THE RIGHT TO KNOW AND

THE DUTY TO REMAIN SILENT:

JOURNALISM IN TIMES OF WAR

JUST ENOUGH

THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUBLIC

SENTIMENT IN UKRAINE

HEGEMONY IN UKRAINE:

A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR

DEMOCRACY THE CRIMEAN TATARS: A UNIQUE

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY IN

UKRAINE’S PAST, PRESENT AND

FUTURE

MY LANGUAGE

WHERE THE RIGHT DOOR

LEADS: LEARNING UKRAINIAN IN

CAMBRIDGE

IMAGE CREDITS

OUR TEAM

Oleksandra Atamanenko

Oleksandr Shtepan

Diana Postavka

Benya Pyatski

Daniil Malitskyy

Anna-Mariia Brynchak

Anastasiia Hryshchenko

Liubomyr Semeniuk

Dariia Hryshchenko

Kira Santalova

Oleksandr Diachenko

Andrii Kuzma

Maryna Santalova

Diana Shypovych

I have made some of the best friends of my life in

the Edinburgh Ukrainian community and through

them an entire new world of ideas has opened up

to me. Nevertheless, as a relative outsider, I have a

unique perspective and have watched with awe as

these people, who live daily with all the torments

of wartime, have thrived in the face of it. That

survival is even more important because of what it

truly means. This war is not only about territory,

but about society and community and knowledge,

which is why journals like this one are so important.

Our theme for this issue is ‘Why Study Ukraine?’. To

me, the answer is simple: to study Ukraine is to seek

understanding of the will of democracy to survive in

the face of terror. What better lesson could one hope

to learn in the world we live in today?

Dïaspora encapsulates exactly what Ukraine is

ghting for: its freedom and way of life. Because

even if an entire generation is devastated, their ideas

and spirit will live on. But if their achievements are

erased, and their culture, then it’s as if they never

existed. That is what Putin wants, and it is the one

thing we simply cannot allow.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ULRICH POEHLMANN

about to read.

SPONSORS

104

106

108

2 3DЇASPORA JOURNAL

NOT THE

MORNING I

IMAGINED

Not the morning I imagined,

When I laid down to sleep in the dead of night.

Not the morning I imagined,

When they came to stare, with eyes devoid of light.

Those ‘comrades’ laced with their cloying lies,

Who froze the world with menacing fangs.

They gifted thunder to our skies,

And fear to children with silent pangs.

Are you our friends, if all you bring is sorrow?

You lie — and worse, your silence is a blade.

Are you our brothers, striking in the shadow?

I don’t want words. Just shoot. Let the bombs cascade.

There’s nothing sacred in shameless destruction.

No innocence to shield you in this war.

You won’t create joy from corpses or corruption.

No gift of blood can mend a shattered heart’s core.

Whether I stop, or move, the passerby can’t save me.

Your ‘sorry’ (извини) sounds as false as all your pleas.

Look closely — it’s you, your child, your history

Who plant again the seeds of an old disease.

Do you know your past, if books you’ve never read?

If you had learned, you wouldn’t strike so blindly.

Are you sincere, while hiding the truth instead?

You cry at traitors — and yet betray us too, unkindly.

You broke our bond like whores that scorn aection,

You’d smile and cheer if given half a chance.

You drank away the last of our connection —

While we press on. May your defeat wake you from this

trance.

The capital stands silent, grey and hollow.

Outside — a hush. Just trembling walls remain.

Dark birds driven mad by the lies they blindly follow,

While people watch their screens…

And I still chase the rhyme in pain.

Not the morning I imagined,

When what has happened — can’t be undone.

Not the morning I imagined,

Once you lose your morality — it can never be re-won.

OLEKSANDRA ATAMANENKO

P.S.

And I’m sorry it’s not in your “Russian tongue.”

My soul rings and moans alone.

For the senselessness of what you’ve “secretly” done,

You will in history, atone.

24.02.2022

4 5DЇASPORA JOURNAL

THE CHRISTMAS

OF UKRAINE

FOR THE WORD

A Manifesto for Ukrainia

Studies as a Strategic, Cultural,

ad Civilisational Iperative

OLEKSANDR SHTEPAN

here are moments in history when time ceases

to be exclusively a continuous chronological T

sequence (chronos), and a moment of vertical inter-

ruption appears in it. The Ancient Greeks called

such moments kairos: a qualitatively charged mo-

ment in time that requires decisive action. In kairot-

ic time, delay is no longer neutral, and historical ac-

tivity becomes inevitable. In this sense, history is not

simply recorded or interpreted but actively shaped

by actions taken at a critical moment.

Ukraine stands today where all of Europe stood at

its own birth: vulnerable and threatened, but pro-

foundly alive. This is Ukraine’s Christmas — not a

moment of comfort, but of incarnation. Life is born

not in palaces, but in stables; and tyrants, like Herod,

search for it to destroy it. To live under the constant

sightline of death is not a metaphor for Ukraini-

ans — it is a daily reality. And yet, this is precisely

the space in which identity is claried, values are

sharpened, and meaning emerges.

So why is Ukrainian Studies necessary right now?

Ukraine is not a ‘conict’. It is not a ‘grey zone bet-

ween Russia and Europe’. And it is not a ‘post-Sovi-

et space’. The Ukrainian people are a civilisational

entity whose existence disrupts the imperial logic of

Russia. That is why Russia has continuously sought

to erase Ukraine — linguistically, culturally, histor-

ically. To leave scorched earth behind. After all, a

free, European, democratic Ukraine is an existential

trauma for the Russian imperial psyche. It is a phan-

tom pain. And historically, the response to this pain

has been genocide. They already did this in 1932–33

and 1947, and they continue the tradition of terror

and elimination of Ukrainians and their cultural

heritage today.

WE ARE LIVING

IN SUCH A MOMENT NOW

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and its

sphere of inuence shrank to its smallest size since

the 18th century. Russia perceives NATO and the

entire model of collective agreement as an existen-

tial threat. The fact that Ukrainians, until recently

a ‘brotherly people’, have rejected Russian civilisa-

tion in favour of the West is a powerful and possibly

fatal blow to the Kremlin. The annexation of Belar-

us and Ukraine and the incorporation of the Baltic

and Central European countries, including Poland,

into its sphere of inuence are political goals of the

Kremlin in its eort to push NATO as far away from

its borders as possible.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO ACT NOW?

Europe is making a choice: whether to be pres-

ent now in history’s creation, or to retreat once

again into concern, neutrality, and ‘strategic am-

biguity’. This manifesto argues that establishing

Ukrainian Studies at the world’s leading univer-

sities and cultural institutions is not an academ-

ic luxury but a strategic necessity for Europe’s

survival, moral coherence, and intellectual de-

colonisation.

Oleksandr Shtepan is a Ukrainian expert in strategic communication and branding.

He previously served as an adviser and speechwriter to Ukraine’s third president, Viktor Yushchenko.

6 7DЇASPORA JOURNAL