/421/ Who Are the Wrong Ukrainians? ft. Volodymyr Ishchenko

Ukraine, from Maidan to war.

[For the full episode: patreon.com/bungacast]

Berlin-based Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko joins us to talk about his new book, Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War and his dissection of the war and the underlying political crisis in Ukraine. We discuss:

• class conflict in Ukraine as a legacy of the collapse of the USSR and the stagnation of the Brezhnev regime in the 1970s. 

• The role of the Ukrainian professional classes in the conflict and oversize influence of relatively small neo-Nazi and far-right movements 

• The meaning of ‘Soviet Ukrainians’ today and whether a neo-Soviet revival is happening among youth across the post-Soviet landscape 

• The difference between neo-Soviet revival and Eastern bloc ‘Ostalgie’

• The concept of de-modernisation

• The vicious post-Soviet cycle of passive revolutions and corrupt oligarchic regimes

Links: 

• Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War, Volodymyr Ishchenko

• The crisis of Soviet Ukraine, Volodymyr Ishchenko, UnHerd

• The class conflict behind Russia’s war, Volodymyr Ishchenko, Lefteast

• Russia’s War on Ukraine Has Already Changed the World, interview w/ Volodymyr Ishchenko, Jacobin

• As Ukraine Expands Military Draft, Some Men Go Into Hiding, NYT