Opinions Archives - Forum for Ukrainian Studies

A Comedian in the Ukrainian Presidential Election: An Unusual Announcement on New Year’s Eve and Dubious “Jeansa” Tactics

Posted on February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 by Nataliia Steblyna

The change rhetoric is one of the most popular during any election, including Ukrainian ones. The incumbent president, Petro Poroshenko, won the previous election with the slogan “Let’s live in a new way.” Nowadays his opponents, using the disappointment and anger of the Ukrainian people, aren’t neglecting the tradition and continue to promise a new life under their future presidency. Volodymyr Zelensky, a popular Russian-speaking showman, is one of the newest. He has not been…

Ukraine’s “island” identity: A rock of a nation, surviving all odds

Posted on February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 by Ostap Kushnir

In the mid-1930s, the Ukrainian writer Yurii Lypa compared the Ukrainian nation to an island in his book Pryznachennia Ukrainy (The Destiny of Ukraine): The Ukrainian race is an island among its neighbours, an island with its own life, its own holy things and all-human values. Foreign and imposed spiritual values are worthless, and even non-imposed values are adopted in time, only if they pass the nation’s test… The Ukrainian race is an island, and…

The Study of Ukrainian Nationalism at the University of Ottawa

Posted on December 1, 2014March 16, 2018 by Taras Kuzio

In October of this year, Ivan Katchanovski who is based at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa presented a paper to the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at his university and a second paper at the conference “Negotiating Borders: Comparing the Experience of Crimea, Europe and Ukraine” that was organized by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta. The two papers have generated controversy because they are revisionist…

Corruption, Immunity and Parliamentary Coalitions

Posted on October 20, 2014March 16, 2018 by Taras Kuzio

‘If you do not vote for lustration, there will be castration instead.’ Parliamentary Chairman Oleksandr Turchynov Why are political leaders from both the People’s Front (NF) and Petro Poroshenko bloc (PPB) both eager to include Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party in the new parliamentary coalition? Everybody after all knows it is a virtual political “party” that is funded by the gas lobby and former President Viktor Yanukovych’s Chief of Staff, Serhiy Leyovochkin. A parliamentary majority coalition…

Preparing for Elections in Ukraine

Posted on October 8, 2014March 16, 2018 by David Marples

Preparing for New Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine Two years after the previous elections for the Ukrainian Parliament, a new election campaign is underway. The vote will take place on October 26 under the most difficult conditions the independent state has ever faced. What is the likely outcome and what impact might the newly endorsed Parliament have on Ukraine, the continuing conflict with Russia and the war zones of the Donbas? It is worth recalling that the…

‘Experts’ on Ukraine: All Hands on Deck!

Posted on October 3, 2014October 7, 2014 by Volodymyr Kravchenko

‘Experts’ on Ukraine: All Hands on Deck! (Re: Vladimir Golstein, “Why Everything You’ve Read About Ukraine Is Wrong” (5/19/2014) To put it plainly, it has been a long time since I read so shoddy a text signed by a representative of an academic corporation as the article by an American Slavist at Brown University, Vladimir Golstein, published in Forbes on May 19 of this year.

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