By Viktoriya Sereda. The unprecedented Russian full-scale attack on Ukraine brought the recent conflicts over memory in East Central Europe and in Ukraine to the attention of an international audience. Mass displacement also exposed millions of Ukrainians to new challenges that triggered intensive reinterpretations of the past – both the distant and the very recent – and a reevaluation of their memory through new experiences.
By Vadym Ilin. In the pre-war address in 2022 Vladimir Putin transparently hinted at the significance of the material space as a factor to “rewrite” history: “We are ready to show what real decommunizations would mean for Ukraine”.
By Andrii Portnov. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 came as a surprise to many in Western Europe. Perhaps even more surprising was the firm Ukrainian resistance. But why was this unexpected? Apparently, Putin’s worldview and Ukrainian reality were ignored for a long time.
By Regina Elsner. Since the end of the Soviet Union, dozens of theologians and scholars of religion elaborated on the complicated relationships within the church community of the so-called Holy Rus’. The Moscow Patriarchate defines its territory of spiritual responsibility as encompassing the former Soviet Union – except for the old churches of Armenia and Georgia.
Von Clara M. Frysztacka. Nach zwei Jahren Debatten über den Beginn einer „Ära der Pandemien“ überbieten sich seit dem Einmarsch der russischen Truppen in die Ukraine die Prognosen über den Anbruch einer neuen (oder alten?) Zeit der Geopolitik.
By Natasha Klimenko. On April 13th, 2022, I spoke to Sasha Kurmaz, an artist from Kyiv who now lives in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine. When we started the interview, he told me to keep one thing in mind: “If the air raid siren goes off, I’ll have to close everything and go”.
By Katarina Ristić. Only a few days before the attack on Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin responded to those scandalized by the prospect of a war in Europe, reminding Europeans that such a war had already taken place. In 1999, he said, it was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – not Russia – that had started a “large-scale military operation that included air strikes against a European capital, Belgrade”.
The artist Alevtina Kakhidze lives not far from Kyiv. She was active in the Maidan protests, and her performance for Manifesta 2014, in St. Petersburg, focused on the war in Eastern Ukraine. She speaks about the role of artists in conflicts, what happens to morality during war, and when it is acceptable to be a pacifist.
By Ulf Engel. Contemporary conflicts in Ethiopia are overshadowed by the ongoing war between the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on the one hand and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front on the other. Between 1991 and 2018 both parties were partners in a Tigray dominated coalition front which finally failed to impose its hegemonic nation-building project on the multi-ethnic country.
Interview on the book “Ottoman Children and Youth during World War I” that was awarded the AMECYS 2020 book award. Nazan Maksudyan is Einstein guest professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and was a EUME Fellow in 2009-10.
TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research is a platform for scholars in the humanities and social sciences who are interested in transregional exchange and research on current issues. TRAFO is the blog of the Forum Transregionale Studien (Berlin) and the Max Weber Stiftung – Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland (Bonn).
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