Columbia University Press

Contents

Yuliya Yurchuk: Introduction. Understanding the Ukrainian Spirit: Symbols and Narratives of Ukrainian Resistance and Resilience II

Olha Voznyuk: Symbols of Resistance and Resilience through the Prism of Contemporary Ukrainian Anthologies of War Writing.

Svitlana Kot, Alina Mozolevska, Olha Polishchuk and Yuliya Stodolinska: United for Ukraine: Representations of Civilian Resistance in Ukrainian Digital Popular Culture

Ada Krasenko, Tamara Martsenyuk, and Kateryna Dysa: "Girls, Let's Close the Sky*: Gendered Images of Witches in Ukrainian Media and Culture during the Russo-Ukrainian War



This special issue searches for the deeper roots of Ukrainian resistance as they are expressed in culture and folklore. During the first days of the invasion, one could witness the proliferation of both visual and narrative expressions of people’s emotions and feelings. Images, memes, poetry, songs portraying Ukrainians at war came in their hundreds in the very first days of the invasion. The scale of creativity seemed proportional to the scale of the shock and the horror that the war brought. With three years of atrocities, visuality became more focused on the documentary genre. The articles in this special issue both document and analyze the meanings that stand behind the symbols and narratives of Ukrainian resistance. As products of culture, these symbols and narratives reveal the key traits of the renegotiated identities of the Ukrainian society in the ongoing war.

Contents
Part I: Memory Politics in the Russian European North

Part II: Transborder Memory Politics: Russia and Norway

Featuring contributions by: Darya Aspøy; Håvard Bækken; Helge Blakkisrud; Stian Bones; Kristian Lundby Gjerde; Elena Kochetkova; Petia Mankova; Joakim Aalmen Markussen; Kari Aga Myklebost; Marianne Neerland Soleim; Artem Spirin

Over the past two decades, memory practices related to the Great Patriotic War have assumed an increasingly prominent position in Russian politics and identity-building, both in the domestic sphere and in the realm of foreign policy. Existing scholarship on Russian memory politics tends to concentrate overwhelmingly on the role of the Kremlin, while regional dynamics have received less attention. This special issue explores the Kremlin-driven politics of war memories as they unfold in the northernmost parts of Norway and European Russia, two regions that share not only a border but also a long history of interaction.
Across this border, we encounter two distinctly different social, cultural, and political contexts: on the one hand, Norway – a small, relatively homogenous, and stable welfare state; and on the other, Russia – a vast, complex, and increasingly authoritarian and neo-imperialist polity. By examining the construction and contestation of the past in a variety of regional and transborder settings, including museums, media, school curricula, libraries, and commemorative ceremonies, this issue explores the processes of negotiation, conflict, and adaptation among diverse mnemonic actors in the North.
The study of memory politics in this context sheds light on broader transformations within Russian politics, which has grown progressively more authoritarian while still remaining dependent on regional and local implementation. The cases discussed here further demonstrate how memory politics in Russia have become increasingly securitized over the past decades.

This exhibition catalog presents a collaborative work of Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, scholar and artist, and the key Ukrainian and Jewish writers, art scholars, politicians, educators, journalists, and poets, who unravel the visual mysteries of his artwork on display at the Ukrainian Institute of America in the fall of 2025. Together they address in real time the catastrophic events of nowadays, including ideological brainwashing, imperial aggression, political hypocrisy, cultural genocide, and the immensity of human suffering. The artworks and essays ponder the question of resilience and survival of a nation-in-the making in the situation of a global crisis of humanity.

The volume’s contributors are Alex Averbuch, Rory Finnin, Amelia Glaser, Olena Grozovska, Anna Gruver, Borys Gudziak, Yuriy Gurzhy, Tamara Hundorova, Rodger Kamenetz, Mykola Kniazhytsky, Serhii Kvit, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Vasyl Makhno, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Joel Mokyr, Myroslava Mudrak, Mykhailo Nazarenko, Oxana Pachlovska, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Katja Petrowskaya, Ilia Rodov, Edward Serotta, Anastasiia Simferovska, Benjamin Sloan, Edjan Westerman, and Marcin Wodzinski.

This special issue proposes to approach Ukrainian resistance from the cultural studies perspective. It brings together scholars from different disciplines who address different aspects of resilience and resistance focusing on gender, humor, literature, visual representations, and memes. The authors approach these widely circulated images and narratives as expressions of deep cultural structures that produce meanings. They are rooted in history, past lived experiences, and societal structures that govern human activities and interactions. These images and narratives signal changes in the self-perception of people and shifts in worldviews shattered by war. Although the material analyzed by the authors is very different, they all come to the main overarching conclusion: Ukrainians at time of war actively renegotiate their identities and recalibrate their understanding of history and the place of Ukraine in the world.

Overall, the special issue contributes to the discussions on Ukrainian resistance relying on the evidence found in the grassroots local context. The articles collected here shed light on the deeper structures that enable production of images and narratives that we see on the surface. These structures are rooted in history, cultural memory, gender regimes, and politics. These structures too undergo renegotiations, transformation, and recalibration. To a certain extent, the articles not only analyze but also document and archive the cultural products created by Ukrainian society in the first years of the full-fledged invasion. As such, they will be also valuable as historical sources to be used by researchers in the future.

This book explores survivors’ benefits, a long-standing pillar of social security systems worldwide. Rooted in the outdated male breadwinner model, these benefits were crafted to shield dependents from financial ruin after losing a primary earner. Yet, as societal currents shift—marked by rising female employment, widespread divorce, and the prevalence of informal partnerships—, social security systems increasingly grapple with their relevance. Are survivors’ benefits a vestige of the past, poised for overhaul, substitution, or even elimination?

Focusing on recent shifts in selected countries, this collected volume dissects the legal, social, and policy dimensions of these benefits. It examines how international and European legal instruments address survivors’ benefits and analyzes 21st-century reforms, revealing a system in quiet upheaval. Compact and incisive, this work lays bare the evolution of a once-steady institution now facing an uncertain future.

Russia seems to be hurtling toward fascism. Vladimir Putin and his allies—domestic and foreign—have obliterated and colonized Ukrainian cities in a “holy war,” committed tens of thousands of war crimes, introduced Draconian domestic crackdowns on free speech and political opposition, and rewritten the constitution to seize power in perpetuity. The state and its propagandists declare their intentions to destroy the Ukrainian state and commit genocide against the Ukrainian people, to overthrow the liberal international order, and to recreate the tsarist and Soviet empires. Meanwhile, the Russian population languishes in a militarizing culture in which civic life has been replaced by a cult of war, past and present. Each of these phenomena invites comparisons with past fascist regimes.

This volume gathers leading experts in the first scholarly study of a new Russian fascism that draws on distinctly modern forms of control and violence as much as on historical precedents. An array of theoretical debates and case studies from across disciplines makes this a pioneering study of modern Russian politics. The volume’s contributors include Jaroslava Barbieri, Paul D’Anieri, Jolanta Darczewska, Maria Domanska, Alexander Etkind, Joanna Getka, Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, Vladislav Inozemtsev, Alexander J. Motyl, Andreas Umland, and Michał Wawrzonek.

Danylo Movchan’s watercolors, born from the ashes of Ukraine’s 2022 invasion by Russia, capture the soul of a nation in turmoil. His art, a poignant diary of war, transcends mere imagery, touching hearts where news broadcasts cannot reach. One observer remarked: »The artist conveys his personal feelings about the terrible war in Ukraine with such precision. His symbolic representations resonate far beyond the many images in the media.« From the moment Movchan shared his first painting on social media, his work has been a beacon of expression, subtly illustrating the profound impact of conflict on his homeland. Each stroke of his brush tells a story, weaving a narrative that continues to unfold with each passing day.

This volume not only showcases Movchan’s art but also includes intimate conversations with Max Hartmann and Julian Chaplinsky, an architect from Lviv, whose insights frame the paintings in a broader historical and political context. Movchan himself warns of the creeping revival of totalitarianism, a threat to liberalism and democracy, should we fail to act. Dive into a narrative where art and war collide, offering new perspectives on resilience, loss, and the undying spirit of a people. The cover features a haunting tribute to the artist's brother, lost in the battlefields of Bakhmut in 2023, encapsulating the personal cost of this enduring conflict.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing examines the Russian Orthodox Church’s historic devolution from a church to a mere peddler of political power as a state intelligence instrument. Today’s Russian Orthodox Church seeks to emerge as the most consequential syndicate of social influence across Europe in service to Vladimir Putin’s quest for empire.

The Moscow Patriarchate’s breach of Orthodox unity over the reemergence of an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch prioritizes Russian nationalism at the expense of traditional Christian values. The reasoning is neither ecclesial nor theological but a brazen attempt to prolong Russia’s social suzerainty over its neighbors and impose a European submission to the Russkiy Mir. Patriarch Kirill’s intention is to displace Constantinople as the centre of Orthodoxy and finally establish Moscow as the ‘New Rome’. Moscow’s geopolitical proposition is pregnant with peril. Moscow has the audacity to plead religious persecution by undermining their neighbors’ right to control their Orthodox churches while simultaneously banning the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Russian occupied territories. An inescapable conclusion emerges from it all: The Russian Orthodox Church is a potent and pernicious threat to European cohesion, security, and democracy.

For Europe, the 24th of February 2022 marked a historic turning point. Until then, many decision-makers and commentators did not understand that developments in post-communist Russia can lead to the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

These two collected volumes illustrate some of the factors preparing this tragic escalation. They assemble select papers published mainly in the Germany-based Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society and Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte (Forum for the Contemporary History and Ideas of Eastern Europe).

This first volume reflects upon some critical characteristics of the late Soviet and post-Soviet elites, institutions, and society of Russia.

The volume’s contributors are Håvard Bækken (Oslo), Olenka Dmytryk (Kyiv), Rolf Fredheim (Riga), Konstantin Kaminskij (Berlin), Leonid Luks (Eichstätt), Chris Monday (Seoul), Alexander J. Motyl (New Brunswick), Felix Riefer (Bonn), Natalia Samover (Moscow), Simon Schlegel (Kyiv), and Maria Snegovaya (Washington, DC).

The essays of this collected volume analyze Ukrainian political development crises as components of a larger modernization crisis syndrome. In particular, the papers deal with crises of identity, legitimacy, penetration, distribution, and participation as well as with their interaction with each other. This approach provides a deeper understanding of the nature of political crises in Ukraine and their impact on democratization.
The neo-institutional approach underlying this study allows for an examination of political development crises as systemic and permanent phenomena. The authors identify causes of each type of political development crisis, characterize their specific features in Ukraine, and forecast their further evolution. Readers thereby gain an analytical toolkit for assessing crisis phenomena and potential ways to mitigate them.
The volume’s contributors are Rostyslav Balaban, Svitlana Brekharya, Leonid Kiyanitsa, Nataliia Kononeko, Tetyana Lyashenko, Vitaliy Pereveziy, Oleg Rafalskiy, Svitlana Sytnyk and Galyna Zelenko.

This compelling collection of essays unveils various underlying layers of the Russo-Ukrainian War, casting it against a sweeping socio-historical backdrop. Far more than a military-political chronicle, this empirically rich volume—rooted in the contested terrain of history—delves into a tapestry of pressing themes: humanitarian ripples of neighboring alliances, fierce contests within the information arena, seismic shifts in social fabric, and intricate dimensions of identity transformation. The incisive analyses are often methodologically innovative, particularly in dissecting the functioning of occupation regimes within modern warfare and unearthing subtle yet striking historical parallels. It probes both the grand sweep of institutional forces and the intimate pulse of community life, offering a dual lens on the conflict’s far-reaching impact.
Spanning the first decade of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the essays defy a simple division into its two main phases, instead weaving a narrative that traces the unbroken threads and evolving dynamics of the struggle. Born from conference dialogues, this book does not chase exhaustive completeness. Rather, it embraces the enigma of an unfolding war and its uncertain horizon. With thought-provoking insights and space for contemplation, it beckons readers into the heart of a complex, living history.

In 2020, Belarus erupted in protest against a rigged election and the brutal response of its authoritarian regime, marking a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. Though the revolution did not topple the government, it birthed something profound: a new, collective democratic subject. How did a populace, once politically indifferent, transform into a bastion of solidarity, unity, and fierce dedication to democratic ideals? This book delves into the heart of this transformation, exploring the emergence of a vibrant political community.

Drawing from her firsthand involvement in the movement, the author combines philosophical inquiry with insights from social and political theory. Through personal narratives and in-depth interviews, she paints a vivid picture of the genesis of this new 'we', a democratic multitude galvanized for enduring political change. This exploration is essential reading for anyone captivated by the dynamics of political awakening, the power of democratic solidarity, and the resilience against authoritarian control.

For Europe, the 24th of February 2022 marked a historic turning point. Until then, many decision-makers and commentators did not understand that developments in post-communist Russia can lead to the biggest war in Europe since 1945. These two collected volumes illustrate some of the factors preparing this tragic escalation. They assemble select papers published earlier mainly in the Germany-based Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society and Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte (Forum for the Contemporary History and Ideas of Eastern Europe).

This second volume reflects upon critical characteristics of late and post-Soviet memories, ideologies, and politics of Russia. The volume’s contributors are Kaarina Aitamurto (Helsinki), Boris Barkanov (Morgantown, WV), Alexander Etkind (Vienna), Mischa Gabowitsch (Mainz), Michael Kirkwood (Glasgow), Leonid Luks (Eichstätt), Andrey Makarychev (Tartu), Rosalind Marsh (Bath), Michael McFaul (Stanford, CA), Felix Riefer (Bonn), Mikhail D. Suslov (Copenhagen), Andreas Umland (Stockholm), Ilya Yablokov (Sheffield, UK), and Alexandra Yatsyk (Paris).

The developments of Russia and Germany in the 20th century show astonishing parallels, despite the very different social, economic, and political structures of the two countries. In both countries democratic systems were established for the first time in their respective histories during and after the First World War, respectively. These failed due to their internal weaknesses and were replaced by totalitarian regimes, albeit with completely different characteristics. In both countries, the democrats were given a second chance after the collapse or erosion of the respective totalitarian regimes. However, the “second” Russian democracy that emerged in August 1991 in no way resembled the “second” German democracy—the Federal Republic founded in 1949—but had astonishing structural similarities with the failed “first” one, the Weimar Republic of 1918–1933.

Analyzing all these parallels and putting them in a comparative perspective is the subject of this volume. In addition, the book takes a closer look at the authoritarian and neo-imperial turn in Russia at the end of the 20th century and its historical roots.

Who is targeted by Putin’s propaganda and how does it work? What is “hybrid war,” and how is it related to the concept of the “Russian World”? Who is responsible for propaganda at the technical level, and how exactly does propagandistic journalism function? Who are Russia’s allies in terms of ideology and where do the main threats may come from? Finally: Is it possible to resist information war, and what are the best methods for fighting the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns?

In this book, Ukrainian political scientist Mykola Davydiuk discusses these and other questions. In an accessible manner, the author shares his experience of resisting media propaganda. He gives examples of how people are being manipulated and explains how to avoid the role of a puppet in the Russian hybrid theater.

The book will is especially valuable for those who care about the current developments in Ukraine and the information space its citizens live in, as well as for those who take an interest in politics, not waiting until politics takes an interest in them.

In 9/11 Imaginaria: Writing Catastrophe, Memory, and the War on Terror, Robert Moscaliuc explores how literature and cultural narratives have shaped and been shaped by the events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent “War on Terror.” In an effort to move beyond conventional discussions of trauma and representation, Moscaliuc introduces the concept of the selfish event—a cultural phenomenon so overwhelming that it absorbs and reshapes surrounding narratives to ensure its dominance in collective memory.

Divided into two parts, the book first examines post-9/11 fiction, tracing how the attacks disrupted storytelling and perception by drawing from works by Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Doten, and others. The second part shifts to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, presenting the proximal-ancillary coverage continuum, a framework that differentiates between immediate media-driven representations and reflective literary accounts by authors like Elliot Ackerman, Phil Klay, Michael Pitre, Roy Scranton, and others.

Moscaliuc’s work ultimately explores the intersections of fiction, memory, and power, challenging readers to reconsider how literature not only represents catastrophe but also actively shapes its meaning.

This scholarly work on Montenegro’s history and its social, political, and cultural traditions eschews a conventional chronological framework, where each chapter might delineate a distinct historical era. Instead, the authors adopt a thematic lens, delving into four pivotal themes that span an extended timeline.
Montenegro’s political and cultural development was intricately tied to migration flows and the emergence of broader multicultural dynamics across the western Balkans. Orthodox, Catholic, and Islamic communities, though often in contention, coexisted as integral groups within the region. Consequently, political and military strife, multicultural intricacies, and migration patterns emerged as the primary forces shaping the histories of both the western Balkans and Montenegro itself. Over the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, the prospect of harmonious interreligious and interethnic coexistence steadily eroded, with Muslim Slavs and Albanians frequently targeted by the dominant Montenegrin faction. Montenegro charted its own distinct course toward modernity, unfolding at its own deliberate pace. Yet, with the restoration of independence in the early twenty-first century, the nation seized an opportunity to evolve its earlier, incomplete modernity into a more liberal form, paving the way for integration into the European fold.

During the publication event of her biography, the former Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, stated that she refused to actively advance the Ukrainian NATO membership because there was an example of a successful, non-aligned Russian neighbor in Europe. The country was Finland, widely recognized for her staunch support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
However, this is not the whole story.
Certainly, soon after the invasion, Helsinki decided to join NATO—breaking the tradition of a bilateral »special relationship« with Russia, originally stemming from a traumatic Cold War history of forced appeasement. During the Soviet era, Finland had been treated by the KGB as an »experimental laboratory« for different forms of political, economic, military, intelligence, and informational coercion.
Not only did the Soviets learn and test new strategies. Especially after the collapse of the USSR, Finland and Finnish »friends« were used to promote Russian strategic interests within the European Union. The roots of »Schröderization«, the Nord Stream pipeline, and the EU citizenship of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs can be traced to Helsinki.
During the era of transatlantic turmoil and new power politics, it is essential to understand the depth and methods of the Russian influence activities in Europe. This book illustrates them holistically by focusing on the Finnish example, not forgetting wider geopolitical contextualization, e.g. implications for Ukraine, debate on European strategic autonomy, and continental memory politics.

Dive into the unsettling rise of a radical anti-Western coalition within the sanctuaries of scholarship, where Islamist and far-left ideologies converge. What began as a fringe student movement has now permeated elite academic institutions, subtly dictating the narratives in politics and media.
Through meticulous case studies from the US and Germany, this research uncovers the dark underbelly of ideological extremism, institutional betrayal, and the surge in antisemitic violence. It draws chilling parallels to historical academic dalliances with totalitarianism, revealing how today’s universities are legitimizing Islamism and radical leftist thought. This study is a clarion call, exposing how Western academia is at a tipping point, with Europe on the brink of following America’s path of radicalization. It’s an urgent plea to safeguard our cultural and intellectual heritage from the encroaching shadows of ideological subversion.

CONTENTS:

SPECIAL SECTION: TEACHING IR IN WARTIME

GUEST EDITORS:
KATERYNA ZAREMBO, MICHÈLE KNODT and MAKSYM YAKOVLYEV

Teaching the Russian War against Ukraine: Ukraine as
a Microcosm of the Paradigm Shift from International
Relations to Planetary Politics
IAN MANNERS

Will the Russian War against Ukraine Bring Changes to
the Teaching of International Relations?
OLENA KHYLKO

Teaching International Political Economy in Times of War
THOMAS FETZER

From Shock to Adaptation through National Unity and
Action: Third-year Undergraduate Students of Kyiv-
Mohyla Academy Reflect on the First Eighty Days of Russia’s
War against Ukraine
GALYNA SOLOVEI


ARTICLES

Narratives about Baikonur: City and Cosmodrome
KULSHAT MEDEUOVA and ULBOLSYN SANDYBAYEVA

From Decentralization to Warfare Resistance: Building
a Cohesive Ukraine
OLEKSANDRA DEINEKO and AADNE AASLAND

Epic Indigenization: Literature and Nation on the Soviet-
Finnish Borders under Stalinism
DIEGO BENNING WANG

Ever since the Second World War, the movement of refugees as well as of those seeking better opportunities for work, for education, or a functional democracy, has dominated headlines, influenced political debates, and shaped elections and referenda. Growing nationalist sentiments and policies are increasingly defined against, and clash with, the free movement of people.

In light of these worldwide tensions, this volume explores aggressive and brutal dimensions of migration through literature, documentary films, feature films, and theater productions. Uncovering deep societal forces behind migratory violence, the contributions reveal that instances of structural and cultural violence are rooted in hidden, yet highly influential and destructive, ideologies.

The authors also provide revelatory glimpses into how artistic productions and scholarly works might be themselves subverting or deconstructing structural and cultural violence against migrants.

Offering a critical yet compassionate examination of our culture heavily influenced by borders, exclusion, terrorism, and resilience, the book primarily serves literary and cultural studies scholars with new perspectives on the intersections of art with structuralist and deconstructivist approaches to migration-related violence but also offers a fresh look at borders and migration-related phenomena for those active in the social and political sciences.

This book shares the remarkable and often challenging life journeys of nine Ukrainians from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, and one Austrian who chose to be Ukrainian. With their unwavering resilience and positive attitude, these individuals have transcended physical and mental barriers, leaving an indelible mark with the breadth of their vision and actions, inspiring the world. The book delves into the complex perception of the border as a historical entity that has always been a double-edged sword for Ukrainians: a constant threat, yet it has also provided opportunities—a space for communication, trade, and cultural exchanges.
This volume offers a unique and enthralling journey through the history of Ukraine and its vibrant culture, told through the lives of its extraordinary, yet often overlooked or completely unknown, individuals. The Ukrainian national character, defined by resilience, adaptability, and a profound love for nature, music, and visual arts, is celebrated here. By shining a light on these forgotten figures, readers will discover and appreciate their profound contributions to global culture, offering a fresh and insightful perspective.
Why is this needed today? With the Russo-Ukrainian War, we are observing global attempts to revive the thinking and behavior of the era of colonialism and the times of the Cold War. Through historical figures, the book tells a story about Ukrainian bravery, resilience, flexibility, and a positive attitude toward life. This helped them cope with difficulties and persistently pursue their dreams, contributing to their self-realization and world recognition. These stories are not just great examples of Ukrainian resilience; they are urgent reminders of the importance of understanding and appreciating Ukrainian history and culture in our current global context.

The Ukrainian response to the 2022 Russian invasion has inspired a new appreciation for their country both within and beyond Ukraine. The steadfastness of Ukrainians in the defense of their country no longer surprises observers as Ukrainians have demonstrated a deep commitment to their country for more than two years.

The stories presented here from the war’s second year highlight the ways in which Ukrainians have explored the meaning of their country and culture through the arts; and the manner in which the arts and their creators have empowered Ukrainians to confront the Russian invaders. They represent an extension of the artistic efforts during the war’s first year—chronicled in The Arts of War: Ukrainian Artists Confront Russia. Year One—to bolster Ukraine’s war efforts.

War needs statistics. Numerical data on enemy casualties, equipment, losses and victories. But only those who come very close to it understand the nature of war. Only those and anyone who goes off to war themselves. War mercilessly exposes one’s innermost depths. Those perceived to be strong may prove to be weak, just as those perceived weak may in fact be strong.
When writing this book, Vahur Laiapea went to meet people who are deeply affected by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, whose loved ones it kills and maims, whose souls are left with scars that will never completely heal.
Vahur Laiapea is an Estonian documentary film maker and writer whose work has at times led him into extreme situations. On April 18, 2017, he was kidnapped in Afghanistan by members of the Taliban. Late that evening, he was standing on the edge of a ready dug grave expecting machine gun fire to riddle his back. It didn’t.
Laiapea has visited Ukraine on numerous occasions during the ongoing war. He is currently working on a documentary film and a book about Serhii Kazimir, a Ukrainian officer who returned home in January 2024 as the result of a prisoner exchange after having been a prisoner of war in Russia for almost two years.

From the books and heretics burnt on the pyres of the Inquisition to self-immolations at protest rallies, from the massive burning of oil on the global scale to inflammatory speech, from the imagery of revolutionary sparks ready to ignite the spirits of the oppressed to car bombings in the Middle East—fire proves to be an indispensable element of the political. To account for this elemental source of heat and light, Pyropolitics delineates a semantico-discursive field, replete with the literal and metaphorical mentions and uses of fires, flames, sparks, immolations, incinerations, and burning in political theory and practices.

Relying on classical political theory, literature, theology, contemporary philosophy, and an analysis of current events, Michael Marder argues that geopolitics, or the politics of the Earth, has always had an unstable, at once shadowy and blinding, underside—pyropolitics, or the politics of fire. If this obscure double of geopolitics is, increasingly, dictating the rules of the game today, then it is crucial to learn to speak its language, to discern its manifestations, and to project where our world ablaze is heading.

Previously published by Rowman and Littlefield, this edition has a new foreword from Slavoj Žižek and three new chapters.

This book discusses the state of cryobiology, which is currently developing into an important and innovative field of medicine.
It is already routine to preserve and revive cells and small tissue samples through cooling. The current development of organ cryopreservation with the aim of preserving human transplant organs and making them available to remedy the shortage of transplants will be discussed. Preservation of the entire human body is also a long-term goal which may come a little more into reach by such development.
The processes involved in the cooling of tissues, using vitrification and cryoprotection, are discussed in detail.
The many experiments on cells, tissues and organs at non-cryogenic and cryogenic temperatures below 0°C are compiled and evaluated.
Obstacles to the methods and the development of means to overcome them are another topic.
The astonishing survival of cells following oxygen deprivation is presented with regard to the still inadequate methods of post-mortem tissue cryopreservation.
The possibilities of repairing and reactivating tissues form another chapter.
The book ends with an outlook on the development of amazing new methods and procedures for cryoprotection, the prevention of ice crystals and stress fractures, and the restoration of tissues.

The work addresses a general audience as well as academics and, in particular, scientists who want to find out about the state of research in the field of cryobiology cryoprotection in general and organ and body preservation in particular.

This book came into being almost by accident: After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion to Ukraine, several students of a Kyiv screenwriting school began to describe their impressions, telling what they saw and felt. They created their texts to distract themselves, to re-live difficult moments in their lives, and simply to talk about what was happening to them. Later, it became clear that these texts form a fascinating book, narrating a frank story about the war, a story of private people experiencing the Russian invasion. Volodymyr Hromov, a teacher at that screenwriting school, added several more eyewitness accounts to the students’ texts, excerpts from correspondence with friends and acquaintances.
The book contains testimonies from those who left and those who stayed, those who sat under siege and who crossed the front line. It forms a chronicle of the beginning of a full-scale war, but also of the narrators’ reflections on the events they took part in, their search for a way out, and their hopes for the future. The volume’s contributors are Oleksandr Sivak, Oleksiy Dranhinis, Olha Apenko, Bohdan Bilyaev, Maryna Kuzmicheva, Anastasiya Tymoshenko, Tetyana Stepanova, Olha Horobets, Svitlana Yatsynich, Sima Vasilyeva, Yevhen Khvorostyanko and Natalya Bezmen.

In today’s dynamic business world, the intersection of traditional strategy and human behavior is more relevant than ever. Brought to you by the collaborative minds of graduate students, alumni, and faculty from ESB Business School as well as contributors from INSEAD, this volume explores the subtleties of this integration. Journey through foundational theories, learn about the evolving tools, and delve into the nuanced interplay between emotions and strategic decisions. Ideal for business students, scholars, practitioners, and those curious about the fusion of strategy and human insight, “Aspects of Behavioral Strategy” provides a thoughtful glimpse into the evolving landscape of strategic management.
Where the pulse of strategy beats with the rhythm of the human heart.

This unique collection of essays offers a glimpse into life in and around Kharkiv during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A Kharkiv native, Vikoriia Grivina reflects on living in a city where days are full of poetry readings and gallery openings, while nights are saturated with air raids and explosions.

The chronicle of everyday life is layered with inquiries into the urban history and mythology of the 20th-century Kharkiv, a look at the city’s decolonial processes, new activist communities, and also the re-discovery of the 1920s literary movement known as the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance. The collection also comprises a fictional story that explores some of the darker, irrational fears and imaginations of urban dwellers during war.

The involvement of the so-called “auxiliary police” and the “self-government” (i.e. local residents who were entrusted with the management of the affairs of the municipality) in the murder of the Jewish population and the looting of Jewish property during the German occupation of the USSR is still poorly understood.
This groundbreaking book concentrates on the Ukrainian-Russian-Belarusian borderland and analyzes the diverse motivations of local collaborators.

The reflections and deliberations in this book represent different aspects of the publishing, scholarly and media activity of the former Soviet political prisoner and Jewish-Ukrainian public intellectual, as well as co-initiator of Ukraine’s First of December Group, Joseph Zissels, over the past years. The book starts with outlines of Zissels’s self-understanding and comprehension of his involvement in the dissident movement. Based on his own research, the author offers his model of seeing modern Ukraine through the prism of the coordinates basic to the European system of values. The main themes of the book’s articles, lectures and interviews are civil society, identity formation, social tolerance, and Jewishness.

The book’s title has been chosen, by the author, from Psalm 5, Verse 2 of the Complete Jewish Bible: “Give ear to my words, Adonai, consider my inmost thoughts.”

Nationalism and Indigenousness in Select Commonwealth Writings and Films: A Postcolonial Rereading—the first publication the new book-series Studies in Commonwealth Writings—collects 24 essays written by scholars, critics, and writers from all over the world, which, in the postcolonial perspective, analyze select literary writings and films from the so-called ‘Commonwealth countries’ (especially those belonging to Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbeans) to explore how the concerned writers and filmmakers have depicted issues of nationalism and indigeneity.
Though there are controversies regarding the acceptability and relevance of the term ‘Commonwealth’, the present literary and cultural world is – identifiably – being dominated by publications and works of these ‘Commonwealth’ litterateurs and filmmakers. Ranging from analyses of Canadian writings to Indian films and novels, and from Australian writings to African publications and cinema, this anthology of critical writings—to be used by academicians and researchers alike from the disciplines of literature and film studies—seeks to fill in the (perceptible) lacuna that still exists in the field of critical approaches to Commonwealth literature, films, and culture.

The volume’s contributors are:

• Bhaduri, Irona
• Bhagira, Tanmoy
• Chakraborty, Rituparna
• Dutta, Rishav, and Neha Arora
• Farahmandfar, Masoud
• Ghosh, Debottama
• Guttman, Anna
• Jahan, Israt
• Karmakar, Tushar Kanti
• Kavitha, T.S., and Mahesh Sharma
• Khan, Bodhisattwa
• Khan, Khatija B.B.
• Mark, Tekena Gasper, and Taiwo Afolabi
• Modak, Poulomi
• Mukherjee, Ananya
• Mukherjee, Ananya
• Raj, Sony Jalarajan, and Adith K., Suresh
• Ray, Sumit
• Roy, Kaushik
• Roy, Satyajit
• Saikia, Meghali
• Swarnakar Neha
• Wayal, Amar, And Anupama A.P.
• Yadav, Ram Bhawan

Leonid Finberg is a prominent Jewish-Ukrainian public intellectual. His main research interests include the history and culture of the Jews of Ukraine, Ukrainian society of the twentieth century, post-totalitarian world, and socio-political issues of the present. He has published over 100 articles in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, French, German, and American academic and non-fiction journals.
This volume contains, in the form of an interview, Finberg’s account of his own editorial, writing, and publishing activities, his articles on and assessments of current events in Ukrainian and Jewish history. The collection of texts is a testament to different stages in the development of Finberg’s self-awareness and reflections on culture, history, and the present.

Religious elements play an important role in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Russia has used, among others, religion to justify parts of the war that has been going on since 2014, the invasion of 24 February 2022, and its own war propaganda. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a church dispute continues that has concrete political and human rights implications, Islam plays an often overlooked role on both sides of the front. The Russian war also represents a paradigm shift for the security of Jewish life.
This volume assembles contributions by authors from the fields of political science, ecumenics, theology, history, sociology, and ethics. All contributions are united by the basic assumption that although the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine is not a religious war, it cannot be understood without considering and analyzing religious elements and contexts of justification.

This collected volume is based on a selection of research projects in the field of Intercultural Management at the Europäische Fernhochschule Hamburg, Germany.
The contributions focus on the challenges and opportunities faced within a modern and globalized workplace. Each paper highlights a distinct management problem from industries such as business administration, education, healthcare, and other important sectors.
A testament to the need for cultural intelligence in every workplace, the studies demonstrate how understanding that culture is more than simple geographical boundaries is crucial for enhancing personal growth, developing leadership skills, and building trust. Furthermore, a strong cultural intelligence fosters awareness and flexibility, an understanding of ethical and sustainable decision-making, and ultimately leads to more effective global interactions.

Contributors: Asche, Antonia; Bernhardt, Anja; Bieck, Dana; Englert, Christiane; Fritsch-Hehle, Maria; Thal, Daniel; Uhlig, Anna Carolin

This book investigates the concept of the System of National Cooperation (Hungarian abbrev.: NER), which was introduced as a form of “New Social Contract” (Csanádi), and its framing in pro-governmental media and public discourse during the period from 2010 until 2018. This qualitative discourse and framing analysis is based on case studies of how the Hungarian Citizens Union Fidesz-MPSZ (mis)uses government-friendly media to popularize its policies and actions, especially those related to the NER.
So far, the NER and its discursive manifestation in the media remain neglected topics in international academia. This unique study elaborates on the complexity of the Hungarian System of National Cooperation and provides an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the framing of discourses and concepts, in pro-governmental media.

Between 1932 and 1933, millions of people in Ukraine died of forced starvation. The famine, now known as the Holodomor, became one of the most deplorable acts in the history of the Soviet Union and the wider twentieth century. The Holodomor occupies an important place in Ukrainian and Soviet history, but less is known about the famine’s role in world history. Much has been written about the intents behind the famine, its genocidal particulars, and the effects of the famine within the borders of Ukraine. Still, a significantly smaller amount of work has examined how the Holodomor affected and was affected by global economics, politics, and international relations during the 1930s. The famine was covered in hundreds of press reports worldwide and debated and discussed by governments and world leaders. It became a crisis that captured the attention of foreign observers on every continent.
This collected volume is the first to address the history of the Holodomor from a global perspective. The chapters present perspectives on famine from a multidisciplinary approach that enables us to reckon with the global implications of mass starvation in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 and to understand them on a scale that transcends the borders of Ukraine and the Soviet Union. This book results from the germination of ideas that the contributors first presented to a conference at the University of Cambridge in 2022. They include, in alphabetical order, Roser Alvarez Klee, Olga Andriewsky, Ray Gamache, Ola Hnatiuk, Bohdan Klid, Andriy Kohut, Wiktoria Kudela-Swiatek, Sara Nesteruk, Matthew Pauly, Henry Prown, Yuri Shapoval, Iryna Skubii, Atanas Terleckas, Serhy Yekelchyk, and Larysa Zasiekina.

Ukraine is the new West Berlin of Eastern Europe. The annexation of Crimea and the Russian invasion of the Donets Basin (Donbas) forced the Ukrainian nation to change. In 2013, it was still a post-Soviet country with a divided identity. Today, it is an outpost of Europe which has been holding back the onslaught of the Russian army for several years now. The Wild West of Eastern Europe by Pavlo Kazarin is a book about how such a transformation has become possible.
In 2022, the Ukrainian version of this volume was named “Book of the Year” by BBC Ukraine in the category of “Essay Writing”.

This book begins with an examination of the powers of the UN General Assembly and the legal character of its resolutions, analyzing the UN Charter and related documents, as well as the interpretation of relevant provisions by the International Court of Justice, the General Assembly itself, and international legal doctrine.

The author analyzes the UN General Assembly resolutions from 2014 through 2023 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, condemnation of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, war crimes committed by its political and military leadership and Russian citizens, the legal responsibility of the Russian Federation and its citizens, as well as the parameters of a future just and lasting peace.

Every couple of years, a new corruption scandal of the oil industry draws the attention of worldwide media: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists describes the complex schemes of shell companies, international transfers, and hidden tax havens that the political elites of resource-rich countries exploit to embezzle the wealth of the land they should be protecting; dozens of books discuss at length how kleptocrats and their informal circles spend millions of dollars virtually undisturbed in the general hypocrisy of world leaders. This is what we know, but how do the actors of the oil sector shape their relationships through informality?

Using Kazakhstan as a case study, Gian Marco Moisé explores the various ways in which corruption and informal governance converged and were shaped by the everchanging power dynamics between the different actors participating in the industry. Complemented by discussions on other rentier economies, each practice of the taxonomy is presented as a specific strategy employed by the predatory elite to achieve different governance objectives. As these practices normalize, their effects trickle down into an increasing inequality that contributes to the generalized informality of the lowest ranks of the industry.

This volume presents a collection of selected essays and interviews with scholars and experts that were published by the Forum for Ukrainian Studies in the first two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. The authors tackle a broad range of questions about identity, culture, propaganda, security, international relations, history, decolonization, and the state of the art in Ukrainian studies and Russian studies in Western academia in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The texts are presented chronologically to illustrate the dynamics of the rapidly unfolding events and contextualize the ideas and narratives that were discussed at particular moments. The interviews and essays provide supremely knowledgeable and nuanced perspectives and analyses of the war, from both within Ukraine and abroad.

The volume’s contributors are Jars Balan, Margarita Balmaceda, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Mykola Bielieskov, Michael Bociurkiw, Mariana Budjernl Dovile Budrytė, Dmytro Bushuyev, Vitaly Chernetsky, Davis Daycock, Marta Dyczok, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Olexiy Haran, Khrystyna Holynska, Aliaksei Kazharski, Yuliya Kovaliv, Ostap Kushnir, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Serhiy Kvit, Elżbieta Kwiecińska, Frank Ledwidge, Agnieszka Legucka, Artem Mamadzhanov, Tamara Martsenyuk, Jade McGlynn, Rajan Menon, Alexander Motyl, Cynthia R. Nielsen, Mitchell Orenstein, John V. Parachini, Bo Petersson, Serhii Plokhy, Yevhenia Podobna, Oleksii Polegkyi, Maryna Shevtsova, Marci Shore, Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, Polina Sinovets, Kevin Theriault, Ewa Thompson, Iryna Tsilyk, Peter Vermeersch, Alexander Vindman, Mychail Wynnyckyj, Andrii Zharikov, and Mariia Zolkina

The importance of Belarus to European security has increased in recent years, but the history and identity of the country have yet to be uncovered by the broader public. Throughout the centuries, the various rulers of Belarus have intentionally silenced its national history to distance Belarus from its European context.

This historical book aims to demonstrate that Russian assimilation policies and the labeling of Belarus as “Russia’s little brother” have been elements of a deliberate imperialistic policy, as Belarus shares most of its history with Poland and Lithuania.



The Russian invasion of Ukraine dominated international headlines in 2022. Belarus officially supported Russia in the war, yet hundreds of Belarusian volunteers enlisted in the Ukrainian army. Meanwhile, the Belarusian opposition organized itself in Poland and Lithuania, and a concrete wall emerged along the border with Belarus.

Is Belarus destined to remain isolated from Europe and an extension of Russian geopolitics, or can it restore its historical connections to Poland and Lithuania? How have Belarusians defined their identity, and how have their international relations evolved over the centuries?

Toni Stenström provides a new and unique insight into one of Europe’s most unknown countries.

Whoever may have expected that Ukraine’s “Executed Renaissance”—i.e. the annihilation of the most creative, innovative and productive poets, thinkers, and artists in the 1920ies and 1930ies—may gloomily, but finally have receded to a distant past and remains a highly stimulating and controversial topic only for specialists in the fields of Ukrainian poetry, literature, and philosophy, will have experienced a distinct reminder that history is not finished. The “Executed Renaissance” is not even past in an independent Ukraine fighting for its liberty and cultural survival against genocidal imperialist aggression.

Executing a Renaissance as the title of this collection responds both to the poets, thinkers, and scholars who are again persecuted and executed by the Russian soldateska. It is also an attempt at existential optimism against all odds, made possible by the courage and determination of the Ukrainian people. It insists on the monumental fact of the matter that Ukrainian intellectuals and artists are in the process of executing cultural and linguistic Renaissances in the grimmest of circumstances.



With contributions by Olga Bertelsen, Polly Corrigan, Victoria Malko, Josef Wallmannsberger, and Mykola Zerov.

Some anecdotes very accurately and concisely describe social processes. “What is democracy?” someone once asked a Sociologist. And he answered: “It is a social system where power belongs to the people, and everything else belongs to the power.” Instead of this witty answer, one could spend a long time explaining the sociological concept of minimalist democracy.

Volodymyr Paniotto presents selected anecdotes on various topics that sociologists study and shows us in his comments to the anecdotes what conclusions sociologists could draw from analyzing the situation described in the joke.

The main task of the book is to demonstrate that sociology is interesting and fun. The reader will be able not only to laugh but also to understand the specifics of the sociological approach to analyzing society.

The first version of this book was published in Ukrainian in January 2022. This version is abridged and modified for the English-speaking reader.

What is speech? Where did it come from?
Speech is the exchange of information for mutual social orientation. Its fundamental features are simplicity of structure and universal referential usage.

Gaona traces the evolution of signal calls of anthropoid apes and early hominins to the vocalized utterances of speech. The signal call’s frequency components were deconstructed and rearranged (isomeric reordering), leading to the breakthrough discovery of the syllable as a uniquely creative unit of communication. Determining the source of the vocalic and consonantal elements of the syllable as its integrative framework is essential to understanding the origin of speech.

Vowels are the key element of every syllable, positioned invariably at the peak of an acoustic wave form to which consonantal elements can be added at the beginning or end. Vowels were first isolated during the ritualized practice of group tonal vocalization as the only consistent, effective carriers of referential sound, with proto-consonantal oral noises excluded as interruptive and unsustainable (i.e., t - k - b). At the utterance of a vowel (or vowel equivalent), the syllabic wave emerges. Subsequently, the previously excluded noises would be incorporated with the vowel into the cohering acoustic wave-energy field of the syllable. As an ordered set of phonic elements, the syllable is the fundamental combinatory (tap, pat, apt) and permutational (tap-es-try, pat-tern, ap-ti-tude) structure generative of lexical items: the foundational basis of speech.

Gaona’s study focuses on:

The semiotic and cognitive importance of the ritual display performance (a series of actions that are performed in a specific order and often have cultural or spiritual significance);

How hominins first learned the significance and use of signs by tracking animals, an essential precursor of speech born of the need to track data and communicate the results to the group;

Stepping as a group: the regulated collective pace as the source of sustained rhythmical progression, leading to dance, music and the prosody of speech (the patterns of rhythm and sound); and

The interval: uniformity of the collective step and its patterned subdivisions (i.e., half step or quarter step) as the origin of choreography of movement (dance), scalar melodic composition (music) and the prosodic intermittence of speech (stress and intonation).

When in February 2022 Russia attacked Ukraine full-on from the north, east, and south, a Kyiv Theology Professor joined the Ukrainian defense as a sniper and left the city to fight near Chornobyl. Elsewhere, a small group of Chernihiv residents rescued thousands of locals from the besieged city, using hidden roads to bypass Russian soldiers. Others found themselves under Russian occupation, living in constant fear of Russian soldiers entering their yards. In the midst of war, reality surpasses any fiction.

What does the former businessman feel when he evacuates the bodies of fallen soldiers, day after day? Why do some people choose to live in the rubble of their flattened homes? How do Ukrainian soldiers who survive only because of an amputation cope with recovery, and how do Ukrainian rehabilitation specialists cope with the surge of patients? What continues to motivate people to fight who just yesterday didn’t believe such a war was possible?

These 21 stories, collected from diverse regions of Ukraine since the beginning of the 2022 full-scale invasion, speak of courage, resilience, pain, death, love, and hope.

This is the first such collection of essays presenting a critical multi-author examination of language and power relations in Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The post-Soviet period in Ukraine and Kazakhstan has been characterized not only by changes in the economic marketplace in the transition from communism to capitalism, but also in the linguistic marketplace. During the Soviet period, Russian was the primary language of schooling, media, and government administration in both countries, leading to widespread language shift away from their titular languages, especially among the educated urban elites. Since independence, Ukrainian and Kazakh, which occupied relatively peripheral positions in the Soviet-era marketplace, have been elevated to the status of national languages and institutionalized in government and schools, thus increasing their symbolic power. Nevertheless, the years since independence have also seen contentious debates around language.
Employing various methodological tools ranging from surveys to critical discourse analysis of legislation, literary texts and social media products, the authors in this volume seek to demonstrate and explain how political relations and hegemonic ideologies have been reproduced and negotiated at both the macro-level in legislation on language and state-sponsored media channels and embodiments of political and linguistic ideologies in translations, as well as at the micro-level of everyday language practices, school choice, and discourses on social media platforms. Among the authors are Elise S. Ahn, Igor Danylenko, Bridget Goodman, Lada Kolomiyets, Natalia Kudriavtseva, Svitlana Melnyk, Juldyz Smagulova, Yuliia Soroka, and Maryna Vardanian.

New analytical frameworks help us to shed light on global transformations regarding community responses and complex ways to think about gendered solidarities. Bringing together different ethnographic fieldworks, Ribas-Mateos provides lucid accounts of fundamental themes of the current times. This book involves a serious effort of visibilization of the hidden sexual violence in Mediterranean borders—particularly in Tangier and Oujda. Moreover, it brings such message of visibilization to diasporic cites—London and Paris—through the organization of video-debates and crowdfunding projects.

This “Moving Cartography” consolidates the disparate strands of thought of mobilities in specific global sites, in order to provide a fundamental book for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of today’s social solidarities regarding women´s resistance, African migration, and BLM activism.

This book examines the profound transformation that has occurred in Ukrainian society as a result of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. The authors—two renowned sociologists and directors of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology—document and explain the post-Soviet evolution of Ukrainians’ views, values, and behavior. Utilizing data from hundreds of opinion surveys from 1991 to 2023, they analyze how the war affected the formation of Ukrainian national identity, geopolitical orientations, society’s readiness to resist, attitudes towards the state and its institutions, as well as other aspects.

This timely study highlights socio-economic transitions, migration moods, the moral-psychological state of the population as well as the changing media and Internet consumption among Ukrainians. It also examines the thorny issue of possible social tension that may arise in post-war Ukraine.

The volume is not only an invaluable source of public opinion data, but constitutes also as a basis for further analysis of the post-war reality. It offers an essential tool for understanding the challenges and opportunities facing Ukraine on its path to recovery and development. Most of the data from the studies used have been transferred to the National Data Bank “Kyiv Archive”, which provides scholars with the opportunity to conduct more detailed research.

The Encyclopedia Tyrannica transcends the conventional boundaries of an encyclopedia, serving as a comprehensive research guide for scholars, students, and experts in the fields of authoritarianism and democratization. It delves deep into the historical, theoretical, and methodological underpinnings of key concepts while providing exhaustive literature reviews and exploring their varied applications across different world regions. Recognizing the challenges posed by the expanding landscape of authoritarian studies, over thirty experts collaborated to streamline the vast literature, exposing blind spots and accounting for nuances.

Whether seeking foundational knowledge or navigating specialized topics, the ‘Tyrannica’ stands as the definitive resource in dictatorship studies. By bridging gaps between theory and practice, novice and expert, it aims to foster a deeper understanding of autocratic regimes, their classifications, features, actors, behavior, worldviews, and transitions.

Designed with a structured approach, the ‘Tyrannica’ organizes entries logically, offering both alphabetical and thematic arrangements in seven sections. Additional information boxes enhance understanding by providing context-specific examples and understudied aspects. Intended as the quintessential reference for scholars and students alike, this encyclopedia extends beyond academia to policymakers and experts, offering a systemic overview of dictatorship studies and its intersections with democratization research. Area study experts will find alternative theories and regional variations elucidated, while educators can utilize the book as a teaching aid.

This book was co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union within the M.O.R.D.O.R. project (2021-1-PL01-KA220-HED-000023034).

Finding happiness and contentment: What makes us truly content and what lures us down the wrong path.
How to live more authentically: Draw courage from the experiences of a psychoanalyst to fight for yourself!

A psychoanalyst takes stock after thirty years on the “other side of the couch.” What has really helped his patients? What does happiness mean and how can we achieve it? Adler concludes that in the end, it was always the seemingly simple changes that really helped: making friends, finding a sense of security and confidence, having goals in life, rediscovering curiosity, and taking everything much more calmly. Above all, to draw on a deeply felt sense of one’s own self, rather than on external and internal constraints. To be authentic and to identify and implement the things in life that bring true satisfaction. This book helps readers find out for themselves: what do I truly need? How do I become secure in myself? How can I shape the best possible version of my life?

Most research on Ukrainian nationalism in the 20th century focuses on the OUN and UPA and their armed struggle for Ukraine’s independence. Ernest Gyidel’s book stands apart. It deals with a little-studied page in the history of nationalism, namely its public expression in the legal press under German occupation in World War II. He uses Krakivski Visti (Cracow News)—the leading Ukrainian newspaper of the General Government—as a case study due to its unique status of being less constrained by German censorship.
Gyidel walks us through a variety of nationalistic expressions from articles attacking Poles, Jews, and Russians to texts celebrating great Ukrainian writers, commemorating the national sacrifice, and discussing the threats of mixed marriages in Ukrainian national life. He reminds us that the history of Ukrainian nationalism was written not only by people with guns and bullets but also with typewriters and printed words.

The ongoing Russian war against Ukraine has brought many new challenges to the teaching of international relations (IR). Ukrainian and international universities have had to rethink their curricula and pedagogies, both content- and format-wise, to adapt to new realities. The new challenges varied greatly, from delivering lectures from the bomb shelter or even from the frontline to rethinking of the IR curricula across the field.

This volume explores the experiences of Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian academics who have taught IR courses during the Russian war against Ukraine and covers a wide range of issues, from enabling resilience during work within Ukraine to embracing the psychological effects of the war on teaching and learning to the amendment of course syllabi.

Several consecutive global crises, including the collapse of the Socialist bloc, the global economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the current war in Ukraine have put the lives of citizens of former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union under threat. How do the most affected amongst them manage to survive global crises? How do their experiences from previous crises influence their behavior when a new global crisis emerges?

Through a unique comparison of life paths of post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet migrants and their communities across Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Sanja Tepavcevic offers a novel theoretical approach revealing a relationship between loyalty to communities and resilience to global crises. For many post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet migrants, the (perception of) exclusion from communities that they belonged to prior to a crisis tends to reshape their sense of belonging and modifies their loyalty to and identification with a community or collective identity. These processes represent psychological and cultural (or ‘soft’) forms of resilience. Similarly, as Tepavcevic demonstrates, greater physical (or ‘tangible’) resilience shows itself in emigration and the formation of alternative communities.

By combining and analyzing narratives, participant observations, and theories of resilience and loyalty borrowed from social, behavioral, and the natural sciences, Tepavcevic demonstrates that global crises challenge existing communities and generate various forms of migrant communities, loyalty, and resilience. Among others, social scientists, migration policy-makers, and migrants will benefit from reading this book.

The Sobibor Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis as part of the secretive Operation Reinhardt—with intent to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry. This account of the Nazis' remorseless and relentless production line of killing at the Sobibor death camp tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind. Chris Webb's painstakingly researched volume ranges from the survivors and the victims to the SS men who carried out the atrocities.The book is the result of decades of research and multiple trips to the original site. Its strength lies in the close examination of the smallest details and a thorough analysis of the fates of the perpetrators and the victims. Closing a gap in the existing literature, Webb focuses on the victims and presents details of their lives which have been found and re-tells them to keep their memory alive, to show they are not forgotten.

The book covers the construction of the death camp, the physical layout of the camp, as remembered by both the Jewish inmates and the SS staff who served there, and the personal recollections that detail the day to day experiences of the prisoners and the SS. The courageous revolt by the prisoners on October 14, 1943 is re-told by the prisoners and the German SS, with detailed accounts of the revolt and its aftermath. The post-war fate of the perpetrators, or more precisely those that were brought to trial, and information regarding the more recent history of the site itself concludes this book. There is a large photographic section of rare and some unpublished photographs and documents from the author's private archive.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Anastasya Knyazhytska



This book has come out of the art project "Icons on Lids of Ammunition Boxes", initiated and led by Sofiia (Sonya) Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko. Painted on fragments of empty cartridge containers brought back from the front, the icons are silent witnesses to Russia’s covert war against Ukraine in the Donets Basin in 2014–2021. At the same time, they are testimony to the victory of life over death—not only in symbolic but also in real terms.

Since the spring of 2015, the project was a volunteer initiative whose revenues support the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital. This unit provided medical assistance to military personnel and civilians in the Anti-Terrorist Operation / Joint Forces Operation zone.

The contributors to the book include Volodymyr Rafeyenko, Hennadiy Druzenko, Archimandrite Kyrylo Hovorun, George Weigel, and Zoya Chegusova.

Alexander Strashny examinines what defines Ukrainians as a people and makes them tick. Based on an analysis of Ukraine’s history, everyday life, economy, military affairs, gender, religion, art, music, and other cultural aspects, the Strashny, a trained psychoanlyst and prolific author, outlines those psychological features of Ukrainians that define them as a distinctive nation.

Upon examining similarities and differences between Ukrainians and Europeans, on the one hand, and Russians, on the other, the author singles out the fifty most salient features of the Ukrainian outlook, whose combination constitutes the essence of the Ukrainian mentality. The book explains how the population of a relatively small country successfully resists a more powerful and ruthless aggressor.



With a foreword by Antonina Lovochkina



Translated from the Ukrainian by Olha Tytarenko and Michael M. Naydan

The authors take an in-depth look at an accepted practice of classifying ALL animals held in a business of primary product in Australia as revenue assets regardless of the function they perform in that business. This practice denies retiring farmers tax concessions granted to other businesses. They describe the practice as unfair, and after a deep examination of the circumstances that gave rise to the generally accepted accounting and tax interpretation, they find that it is not true.

They report their story and point their fingers at a glaring tax injustice.

The Berlin book burning and the raiding of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for sexual science ("Institut für Sexualwissenschaft") in May 1933 is part and parcel of German memorial culture. Due to a rehabilitation and revival of Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), noticeable in Germany in recent years, many Germans now know that the pivotal LGBT-rights precursor activist died in 1935 in exile in Nice (France), heavily traumatized by the destruction of his life work by the Nazis in Germany.

This is the very first book reporting in detail on what happened in the years 1932–1935 before Hirschfeld’s death and, especially, during the seven years that followed his death.



Besides reporting on Hirschfeld’s last years in France, this volume is the very first biography on Karl Giese and Karl Fein, the main players in the afterlife of Magnus Hirschfeld in France and Czechoslovakia.

This seminal book takes up the thread where Rainer Herrn’s 2023 book, on the history of Hirschfeld’s Institute and the life work of Magnus Hirschfeld ended, in 1932–1933. It can also be read as an extensive contextualizing guide to the facsimile edition of the surviving Hirschfeld guestbook that was published in 2019 (Bergemann, Dose, Keilson-Lauritz & Dubout).

American-born Larissa Babij is at home in Kyiv when Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Her grandparents left Ukraine amidst the violence of World War II, and nearly 80 years later, she is fleeing the advancing Russian army. A Kind of Refugee chronicles the first year of all-out war in Ukraine through vivid dispatches that Babij sent to readers abroad. In cities flooded with refugees and bustling with humanitarian aid efforts, or while supporting an innovative military unit making DIY drones, Babij examines Ukrainian cultures of cooperation. Reflecting on her American upbringing, she ponders the premium that Western societies—shaped by the traumatic history of WW II—place on security. When she returns to Kyiv, sirens, Russian missile strikes, and long periods of darkness organize her days.

This moving account of taking responsibility for your home and your history concludes with several essays on theater published between 2015 and 2021. Written with a fierce love for Ukraine and its people, this book is a testament to the courage of ordinary people committed to freedom while defending their homeland.

This monograph explores the recent political history of Ukraine from a novel diachronic and comparative point of view. A largely unknown period of history for non-Ukrainians, the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR), which emerged at the end of World War I, is today still a hot topic for Ukrainians. The years of 2013–2022 were an equally dramatic period with a number of unsolved problems and conflicts, while the large Russian invasion into Ukraine since February 2022 marks a new epoch, which is impossible to assess yet.

The periods of 1917–1921 and 2013–2022 exhibit both, astonishing similarities and deep differences. The UPR period was one of the few times when the Ukrainian nation gained full political autonomy as a separate state. That is why the story of this book resonates with the thoughts and feelings of many citizens of Ukraine. It presents an insightful glance into different stages of recent Ukrainian history for a non-Ukrainian audience. Petik highlights why and how the UPR is not only important for academic history but also for the identity and self-perception of the Ukrainian nation.

In the ever-evolving landscape of startups, risks and opportunities draw in creative and entrepreneurial individuals who strive to realise their visions. While much of this occurs concealed from the gaze of the public, innovation has transformed from an enigmatic black box into a predictable and manageable process—provided one possesses the right tools and knows where to look and what actions to take.

The method presented here for evaluating and managing startup risks is geared towards the uncertain world of innovative startups and enables entrepreneurs and investors to navigate it more confidently. The book focuses on the initial stages of startup creation all the way through to implementation and marketing. It adopts an incremental delivery perspective, underscoring the importance of understanding the intricate processes of bringing an innovative idea to fruition. The book also explores broader applications of the proposed Hypothesis Testing Method for the systemic development of innovation-promoting ecosystems and startups in the context of post-war economic recovery.

This guide will be invaluable to practitioners seeking to navigate the complexities of innovation, harnessing the potential of cutting-edge startups, and contributing to the resurgence of economies emerging from the aftermath of armed conflict.

In this book we shall be arguing, among other things, for a belief or set of beliefs that neither requires God or is necessarily incompatible with such a spiritual presupposition. It is our view that modern belief does not require God, but may, nevertheless let Him in if so desired. What is most important though is that belief be viewed as a metaphysical-existential category of being that precedes every other category. Thus, for a human to be a human at all he or she must first believe.

Therefore I primarily write for those who are neither convinced by traditional religions or who have not yet been soundly converted by the New Atheists. I also write for those who in their hearts and minds waver between the practice and theories of modern science and the traditional contents and moral prejudices of ancient belief.

Religion has not died. God is still with us. And faith continues to be a power in the world. And although there are many who believe they can do without all three of these things, there are, I suppose, many more who would welcome at least a convincing modern substitute for them.

At 5:08 a.m. on February 24, 2022, Kateryna woke up in Kyiv to the sound of bombing. This marked the end of her world, work plans and ideas, travels … All that remained was to save herself and her children.

The inevitable changes, which shook something deep and significant within her, became an impetus to write about what had caused her and all Ukrainians so much pain. She wrote, one after another, novellas, poems, and essays that reflect the story of the war during the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

This book contains words woven with emotions and experiences of ordinary people who have become heroes. The main goal of this collection is to help people all over the world better understand what each Ukrainian felt and how this war changed us all.

Peacebuilding aims to resolve conflicts by addressing the root causes. The mainstream theory of peacebuilding is the liberal approach, which has been successful in some regions but has also faced criticism and failures in others. In response to the need for new approaches to peacebuilding, China was under the spotlight as an emerging and active actor in conflict-affected areas, through economic assistance, UN peacekeeping contributions, and mediation efforts. So can China’s practice bring stability and peace to the local communities?

This book explores China's approach through the Developmental Peace framework, promoting sustainable peace through multi-dimensional development: economic growth, effective governance, and the human right to survival and development. Based on extensive interviews in China and conflict zones like South Sudan, the author demonstrates China's potential for achieving stability, though long-term observation is needed to ensure sustainable peace. Developmental Peace offers a comprehensive analysis of China's role in international peacebuilding, providing valuable insights into conflict resolution and sustainable peace.

Ukraine expert Winfried Schneider-Deters intervenes in the debate on Russia's war against Ukraine with three timely essays, written during the winter of war in Kyiv in 2022 / 2023. He critically discusses the ambivalent reception of Russian aggression not only in German society. Calls by intellectuals to stop arms deliveries and to negotiate and compromise with the aggressor are, in effect, calls for surrender; in the author's view, their signatories are thus making themselves into Putin's "useful idiots."

Schneider-Deters points out the parallels between Putin and Hitler and analyzes the Russian "Weimar syndrome" after the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the roots of the current, specifically Russian fascism, the "Rushism". He also gives a detailed account of the crimes committed by Russia's armed forces in Ukraine under international law.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague does not have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, the "supreme international crime"; Schneider-Deters discusses the possible steps to create a new international tribunal along the lines of the Nuremberg trials, a "Nuremberg II", in order to be able to hold the aggressor Putin criminally responsible.

This collection introduces Activity Theory to the current generation of theorists and researchers. Originating in early Soviet psychology, suppressed by Stalin, and later rediscovered, this rich theoretical tradition and intellectual movement proliferated globally and developed in different directions across a variety of disciplines. However, until recently it remained “the best-held secret of academia” (Engeström 2009).

Activity Theory presents a unique approach to studying the nature, origin, and development of human subjectivity. Its core proposition is that the mind cannot be reduced to individual brain or body functions, nor can be understood as a discursive or cultural phenomenon. Instead, Activity Theory posits that the mind emerges and develops inter-subjectively, and is internalized by individuals always embedded, along with their culture and language, in the context of object-oriented social practices. By refocusing the lens of inquiry from the individual onto the patterns of activity in which they move, this method illuminates a special reality—the materiality of human practice, which shapes the subject in ways that biological and cultural explanations cannot fully capture.

This volume assembles current scholarship from prominent figures across diverse fields who share the Activity Theory approach. It presents their findings and reflects on Activity Theory’s history, significance, and prospects.

With contributions by David Bakhurst, Andy Blunden, Mikael Brunila, Juliano Camillo, Seth Chaiklin, Michael Cole, Brecht De Smet, Yrjö Engeström, Cathrine Hasse, Alex Levant, Miriam McSweeney, Cristiano Mattos, Kyoko Murakami, Bonnie Nardi, Vesa Oittinen, Juhana Rantavuori, André Machado Rodriguez, Annalisa Sannino, Anna Stetsenko, Katsuhiro Yamazumi.

Peacebuilding aims to resolve conflicts by addressing the root causes. The mainstream theory of peacebuilding is the liberal approach, which has been successful in some regions but has also faced criticism and failures in others. In response to the need for new approaches to peacebuilding, China was under the spotlight as an emerging and active actor in conflict-affected areas, through economic assistance, UN peacekeeping contributions, and mediation efforts. So can China’s practice bring stability and peace to the local communities?

This book explores China's approach through the Developmental Peace framework, promoting sustainable peace through multi-dimensional development: economic growth, effective governance, and the human right to survival and development. Based on extensive interviews in China and conflict zones like South Sudan, the author demonstrates China's potential for achieving stability, though long-term observation is needed to ensure sustainable peace. Developmental Peace offers a comprehensive analysis of China's role in international peacebuilding, providing valuable insights into conflict resolution and sustainable peace.