Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦 @BlackerUilleam Twitter profile

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

2 years

'Imperial violence only inspires Ukrainians to find ever more powerful, inventive, and irreverent ways of becoming Ukrainians.' I wrote for @TheAtlantic on the ways in which Ukrainian literature has resisted Russian cultural imperialism.

What Ukrainian Literature Has Always Understood About Russia

For centuries, Ukraine’s writers have—surreptitiously, brashly, satirically—fended off attempts to erase their national culture.

www.theatlantic.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Anyone who wants to understand what Russia has put Ukraine through over the last 8 years should read the new Ukrainian war literature. Some excellent works are available in English. Here are a few authors worth reading. 🧵 1/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Kyiv 💛💙

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Zelensky, standing at the monument in Kyiv to 19th c Dagestani anti-imperial leader Imam Shamil, appeals to ethnic minorities in Russia to resist the 'shameful' war. He tells them Russia has repressed them and forced them into poverty in order to make them into cannon fodder.

вареничок.eristavi 🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈

@maksymeristavi

2 years

за нашу і вашу свободу. імперії кінець.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Russian bombs have damaged one of the most important buildings in Ukrainian literary history, the Slovo House in Kharkiv. It was built in the late 1920s to house the writers of Kharkiv, then the capital of Soviet Ukraine & the epicentre of a Ukrainian cultural renaissance 1/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

6 months

Ukrainian footballer Viktoria Kotliarova was killed by Russian bombs on 29 December. She appeared in Alisa Kovalenko's documentary film Home Games, about her friend, a young footballer trying to make a career while caring for her siblings. It's on Netflix:

Watch Home Games | Netflix

While struggling to pursue her dreams, a promising young soccer player must grow up fast when she becomes a surrogate mother to her younger siblings.

www.netflix.com

🇺🇦 Ukraine Women's Football | Жіночий футбол УАФ

@uafwomen

6 months

🕯🇺🇦 29 грудня у столиці внаслідок ворожого обстрілу рашистів разом з матір'ю Людмилою загинула колишня футболістка Вікторія Котлярова (Чорновіл). Вікторія виступала за "Спартак" (Чернігів), "Атекс" (Київ), "Ятрань" (Умань). Їй було 27. Вічна пам'ять. #russiaisaterroriststate

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

Today is Taras Shevchenko's birthday. Two years ago, a Russian soldier shot his monument at Borodianka, near Kyiv. It's only one of many instances when oppressive Russian regimes have showed a violent fear of Shevchenko. Here's just a couple 1/5

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Last week I had translations of two Ukrainian writers published: Maik Yohansen, killed by Russia 1937 Victoria Amelina, killed by Russia 2023 My last message from Victoria was about a reference in her poem to another poet I've translated, Vasyl Stus, killed by Russia 1985. 1/4

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Studying Ukrainian culture means studying 300+ years of Russian attempts to eradicate it, from Peter I's prohibitions to Putin's bombing of libraries. Yet that culture survives and thrives. No one who has studied Ukrainian literature is surprised by Ukrainian resilience today.

Natalka Ukraina

@NatallkaUKR

2 years

@yermolenko_v @ukraine_world Here is the list of Russia’s efforts to exterminate Ukrainian culture

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

When Victoria Amelina spoke at @UCLSSEES in April, she'd just written a poem about her experiences talking to women and documenting Russian war crimes in de-occupied areas. Here's a video of her reading the original; my translation is below. So painful to listen to this now. 1/2

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Three basic things I wish commentators would remember re: 'Russia's Victory Day': 1. The victory wasn't Russia's, but the Soviet Union's & its allies'. It was impossible without massive sacrifice from non-Russians, incl. Ukrainians. 'Soviet' & 'Russian' aren't interchangeable.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Zelensky visited memorials at Babyn Yar today, the 81st anniversary of the massacres. The first memorial is the Soviet one, put up in 1976 after years of official refusals (but still with no mention of Jews). The second, the menorah, is from 1991, after Ukrainian independence.

Cynthia 🌻

@cynparker_

2 years

@sumlenny @ZelenskyyUa Babyn Yar @ZelenskyyUa 9/29/22

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

My tribute to the gentle, fierce, empathetic brilliance of Victoria Amelina in @guardian . A text I really, really wish I had never had to write.

Victoria Amelina obituary

Ukrainian novelist who became a war crimes investigator following the Russian invasion, and fought to uncover the true stories of her compatriots’ experiences under occupation

www.theguardian.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

The 1947 Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm (the second ever, after the German), with a preface by Orwell, was made in a DP camp in Germany by Ihor Ševčenko, a renowned Byzantinist. Just the sort of thing your colleagues casually pull out of their bags at @UCLSSEES seminars!

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Amid all the horror, the Art Museum in Kherson posting highlights of its collection feels like a quiet act of heroism. Here is ‘Tomatoes in a vase’, by Maria Prymachenko, Ukraine’s most famous folk artist. Her museum in Ivankiv was destroyed by the Russians.

ArtMuseumKherson

@ArtMuseumKs

2 years

В містечку Іванків (північ Київської обл.) російські окупанти знищили музей, в якому зберігалися роботи Марії Приймаченко. Колекція Херсонського художнього має, на жаль, лише один твір мисткині. 🔹Марія Приймаченко. Декоративне панно «Помідори у вазі». Папір, гуаш, розпис

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

'Poem about a Crow' by Victoria Amelina, inspired by her work interviewing women who lived through occupation. She was writing a book on women's experiences of the war. Another Ukrainian book that will never be finished because of Russian bombs & bullets. 2/2

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Looks like @ucu really covered itself in shame today, passing a motion full of excuses for Russian atrocities and calling for Ukrainians to be left defenceless - effectively, calling for more Ukrainian deaths. Such profound ignorance among supposedly educated people.

habibi

@habibi_uk

1 year

A hideous scene from UCU Congress earlier today. A Ukrainian victory would mean "subjugation and oppression" by "American imperialism". "The main enemy is at home!" The UCU backs the "Stop the War Coalition". It wants Ukraine to be left defenceless. Foul.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

First time in 🇺🇦 since 24/2/22. Struck by how calm, confident & focused people are when they talk about winning the war, as though it’s a big common project in which everyone, whether flying drones or writing poetry, knows their role. Bells ringing over destroyed ru tanks, Kyiv👇

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

I have resigned from @ucu over the unions’s recently adopted, shameful motion on Ukraine. I can’t, in good conscience, stay in the union while this remains its official policy. Read the open letter from @UCLSSEES UCU members on this 👇

SSEES strikes & supports Ukraine 🇺🇦 #Solidarity

@SSEESstrikes

1 year

As @UCU members & ex-members from @UCLSSEES , the UK’s largest centre for the study of Ukraine, Eastern Europe & Russia, we condemn Congress Motion 5’s misrepresentation of the war & UCU’s reluctance to support Ukraine. Please read & share our open letter @DrJoGrady @UCL_UCU

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

11 months

The famous Odesa literary museum was damaged in Russian missile attacks last night. Central Odesa is a @UNESCO world heritage site, and Russia is regularly bombing it.

Об‘єкт Всесвітньої спадщини. У центрі Одеси внаслідок ракетної атаки пошкоджені три музеї

У ніч на четвер, 20 липня, російські окупанти здійснили чергову масовану ракетну атаку по півдню України, під ударом знову опинилися Одеса та Миколаїв. Центр Одеси є об'єктом Всесвітньої спадщини...

life.nv.ua

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

It was a pleasure to join the pro-Ukraine counter demo and ruin the stop the war appeasement circus in London today. We ran into a free Iran counter demo when we arrived at Trafalgar Sq. Solidarity in the face of tyranny and hypocrisy.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

"I don’t want a better city. I want what I had. The city where I knew exactly how many steps to the sea and how many trees in the park’s central alley there were." Powerful stories from Mariupol collected by @kasia_ia @t_bezruk & @OlenaIvantsiv @nytimes

Opinion | ‘At Night I Dream of Mariupol’: Nine Accounts of Surviving a Russian Siege (Published...

Mariupol, Ukraine, has been encircled by Russian forces for about a month. We have collected the statements of people who recently escaped.

www.nytimes.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

A message from two icons of Ukrainian feminism.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

London 💛💙Ukraine

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Perhaps the signatories of this ‘anti-war’ letter should go to Kyiv and explain to people running from missiles and drones that they really shouldn’t be allowed to have their air defence systems. Sad to see a @UCL_UCU signatory here.

Alex Callinicos

@alex_callinicos

1 year

UCU members defend anti-war motion at Congress 2023

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

As if it were ever in doubt, Thomas stands with Ukraine. (Elmers End, South London).

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

So, last night, while the Ukrainian voice of Paddington bear was leading his country in a war against Russia, the British voice of Paddington was reading Shevchenko's poetry beautifully in London.

BBC Newsnight

@BBCNewsnight

2 years

"I fly with my heart in my dreaming To a dark orchard in far Ukraina" Actor Ben Whishaw performs "N.N." by Taras Shevchenko, translated by Vera Rich #Newsnight @southbankcentre

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

6 months

Today would have been Victoria Amelina’s 38th birthday, but Russia killed her.

Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

When Victoria Amelina spoke at @UCLSSEES in April, she'd just written a poem about her experiences talking to women and documenting Russian war crimes in de-occupied areas. Here's a video of her reading the original; my translation is below. So painful to listen to this now. 1/2

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

The world is with Ukraine. It took me MUCH longer than I thought to make this thread, there have been so many protests all around the world, and I have definitely missed many out🧵 London 🇬🇧

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

We must not lose sight of the sheer horror that is russian occupation. This is why Ukrainians are fighting so hard, why they need our support, and why talk of compromising on territory (read: abandoning people to russian terror) is unacceptable.

Stewart McDonald

@StewartMcDonald

4 months

Over 300 residents would be forced down these stairs - no possessions, medicines or food - and not see daylight for 27 days. The youngest was just over one month old. The oldest was 93. Seven would be executed by soldiers. Ten would die due to the conditions in the basement.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

On the horrors of Russian "filtration" camps.

'The Russians said beatings were my re-education'

Ukrainian citizens have told the BBC they were punched and electrocuted before being allowed to leave Mariupol.

www.bbc.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Thousand outside Downing St tonight supporting Ukraine. Ukrainians, Brits, Georgians, Belarusians, Russians and more all united.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Kyiv coughed asthmatically. Through the metro’s drafts the electric trains fearfully rattled, as a dozen layers of ground, white from human bones, horses’ skulls, and grey ash of funeral pyres, rippled like the skin on an angry bull’s neck. Vasyl Stus, born OTD, 1938

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

I’ve been writing about Ukrainian literature for 15+ years. It's full of surprises, but I never expected to be writing about war literature. I wish it hadn't had to appear, but it represents one of the most important developments in recent European literature. Read it! (end)

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

I was at a discussion recently that touched on, among other things, mass sexual violence committed by the Russian army and the mass kidnap of children; one of the first questions from a man in the audience was 'what about western russophobia and western imperialism?'.

Jade McGlynn

@DrJadeMcGlynn

5 months

Russia: kidnapping Ukrainian orphans, making them Russian citizens so nobody can find them Guy in the audience: aren’t you forgetting about NATO expansion though hmmm?

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Volodymyr Rafeyenko's story ‘7 Dillweeds’ transl. Marci Shore, explores the grotesque absurdity of the war: He switched from Rus to Ukr in his novel Mondegreen (transl Mark Andryczyk), about internal exile/language/identity: 2/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

2. Soviet involvement in WWII was not initially about self-defence: in collaboration with the Nazis, the USSR attacked Poland in 1939 in the same brutal way it is attacking Ukraine now. So it was not, as a prominent BBC correspondent said recently, 'completely different'.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Poem About a Crow by Victoria Amelina in the @guardian , in my translation, introduced by @_EmmaGH

Poem About a Crow: a work by the killed Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina

Amelina has died, aged 37, from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk

www.theguardian.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

The choice facing @ucu members today who believe Ukrainians have a right not to be murdered by Russia: stay in the union and spend enormous amounts of energy and time fighting far-left idiocy, or leave the union and be unrepresented and unprotected. Thanks @ucu !

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Journalists are doing a great job on Ukraine. But, please, remember that asking a Ukrainian 'so is Putin right that Ukraine is part of Russia?' or 'are Ukrainians & Russians actually different?' is offensive. I know why you ask, it's important to debunk myths, but be sensitive.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

“we must wake up from the slumber of inaction: this war is existential not only for Ukrainians; it is existential for those of us who want to live in a world governed not by brutal force, but by the rule of law.” @OKhromeychuk in @guardian .

‘Ukraine fatigue’: why I’m fighting to stop the world forgetting us

The long read: Everyone likes to support an underdog, especially if it’s winning. But it’s one thing to win a battle, it’s quite another to win the war. And Ukraine cannot win without international...

www.theguardian.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Chilling report on Russification policies in occupied Ukraine: kidnappings and intimidation of educators, confiscation of textbooks, repression of Ukrainian language, enforcement of Russian state curriculum

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

"The world is learning the names of Ukrainian writers from their obituaries. And that is no way to discover a country’s literature." @OKhromeychuk on Victoria Amelina

Opinion: Victoria Amelina, the sharp and witty Ukrainian writer whose story must be told | CNN

Sharp and witty, Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina syncopated her war stories with dry humour. “Her life of late was dedicated to documenting Russian war crimes. It is her death that documents the...

edition.cnn.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Thoughts are with Victoria Amelina and her family today. She has worked tirelessly to uncover the truth of Russian atrocities in occupied areas, but also to bring literature to frontline towns. Russia has only one response to truth and culture, it seems.

Writer Victoria Amelina was injured in a Russian missile strike of Kramatorsk

This happened on June 27 when Russian armed forces shelled the downtown city with missiles. Our colleague Victoria Amelina, writer, member of PEN Ukraine, field investigator of Russian war crimes...

pen.org.ua

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

7 months

Deeply disturbing @BBCPanorama documentary following the stories of some of the many, many Ukrainian children Russia has kidnapped. One baby was stolen by a senior politician close to Putin. Thank you, @BBC_Olga_M , for your work on this.

Panorama - Putin and Ukraine's Stolen Children

What happened to children taken by Russian forces from a children’s home in Kherson?

www.bbc.co.uk

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Ukrainian anthem at huge protest at russian embassy in London today. I noticed flags of 🇵🇱 🇪🇪 🇱🇹 🇱🇻 🇬🇪 Ichkeria, free Belarus and free Iran. Слава Україні!

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

3. The term 'Great Patriotic War 1941-45' is, given the above, a myth that obscures aggression & atrocity; if we use it without qualification (when we report on Russia in the media or teach its history at university) we acquiesce with the obfuscation.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Ivan Dziuba, a literary scholar & activist, died today at 91. He was a native of Donetsk region, Holodomor survivor & one of Ukraine's most important dissidents. His work is very relevant today. 1/6

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Please read this list of Victoria Amelina's works translated into English. What a talent we have lost. Thank you @olgatokariuk for compiling this.

Olga Tokariuk

@olgatokariuk

1 year

As a tribute to Ukrainian writer and poet Victoria Amelina, killed by a Russian missile in Kramatorsk, please read and circulate her work far and wide. In this thread, I will collect links to some of her writings translated into English ✍️

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Compromise with Russia over Ukraine’s territory will not be peace, it will be occupation, which is just another form of war. - Oleksandra Matviichuk @avalaina speaking @Ukr_Institute / @theRSAorg tonight.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Olena Stiazhkina is also from Donetsk. Her In God’s Language is a powerful novella about occupied Donetsk (my translation for @apofenie , originally @Dalkey_Archive , of an excerpt👇). She has several works on the war already 3/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

It always amazes me how western scholars write books & articles about Ukrainian history, politics, etc. without a single Ukrainian-language source. Can you imagine a book on English history without any sources in English? Ukrainian language in ever western university, please!

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

“Ukrainian art has long been hidden, always having been renamed as something else.” A fascinating essay on Ukrainian art under colonial oppression by my @IWM_Vienna colleague Kateryna Iakovlenko @kasia_ia @apofenie

It's Time for Ukraine to Speak — APOFENIE

by Kateryna Iakovlenko Ukraine is often referred to as part of Central-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, a post-Soviet country, and in conversations with my colleagues from Belgium, it has been called...

www.apofenie.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

10 months

Watching writers you’ve translated pull bullets out of their bulletproof jackets after battle… Oleh Sentsov was injured once again in the frontline; he is okay and continues to take territory back from the occupiers.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

3 months

This cynical habit of passing off violence and corruption as a unique and mysterious culture that cannot be comprehended by simpleminded foreigners is one of the most destructive aspects of Russian culture. It needs to be challenged from within and without.

Steve Rosenberg

@BBCSteveR

3 months

In the Kremlin this week I asked Vladimir Putin’s celebrity supporters about the election. Responses ranged from “We see the happy Russia” to “We don’t like you.” Producer @LIzaShuvalova

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

9 months

Library of the National Literary Museum, Kyiv, formerly the Pavlo Galagan Collegium, a Ukrainian school set up to resist intensified russification in the late 19th c. Many of the museum’s valuable books have been removed from display to protect them from Russian bombs.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

The lines of poetry over the window were particularly provocative for the authorities: “I will raise them up, those slaves so small and voiceless, and place the Word to guard them.” Which perfectly sums up what Shevchenko means for Ukrainians. Image: Alla Horska, 1962. 5/5

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Stanislav Aseyev has written searing accounts of time spent in ‘separatist’ prisons in Donbas. See In Isolation, trans. Lidia Wolanskyj @HURI_Harvard , & an excerpt from another book here transl. by Nina Murray & @TsurkanKate 8/

Violence and Hope in Ukraine: Stanislav Aseyev’s “The Torture Camp on Paradise Street” | Los...

Stanislav Aseyev reflects on his time as a prisoner of separatist forces in an excerpt from his new book, “The Torture Camp on Paradise Street,” and in an interview with Kate Tsurkan....

lareviewofbooks.org

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

“Years of impunity in Syria and elsewhere led Putin to commit the war crimes we see in Ukraine today, which shows that without justice there can be no lasting peace.” Oleksandra Matviychuk @avalaina speaking to @OKhromeychuk at @Ukr_Institute tonight.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 months

I'm really thrilled to have received a @BritishAcademy_ fellowship to research Ukraine's multicultural literary heritage! And very grateful to all at @UCLSSEES , @UCLResearch and especially to @globalrhizome for supporting the project.

UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies

@UCLSSEES

2 months

Congratulations to @BlackerUilleam on receiving a @BritishAcademy_ Mid-Career Fellowship for the project 'Mapping Ukraine’s Multicultural Literary Landscape':

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

The anthology Words for War, ed. Oksana Maksymchuk & Max Rosochinsky, collects a range of contemporary poets in excellent translations (some also appeared in @MPTmagazine ). My translations of Vasyl Makhno's work are here @ASP_Boston 4/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

After his death in Petersburg, Shevchenko was reburied in Ukraine. The authorities feared his grave at Kaniv could become the focus for revolt. His monument was guarded by soldiers on the anniversaries of his birth/death to stop gatherings (here it's 1914, his centenary). 2/5

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

This is absolutely, unspeakably heartbreaking.

PEN America

@PENamerica

1 year

PEN America mourns the death of prize-winning Ukrainian author and @PenUkraine member Victoria Amelina who was struck by a Russian missile in Kramatorsk on Tuesday and died on July 1. #VictoriaAmelina #RIP

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

It was meant to provide modern, spacious conditions for writers and foster a creative community. It is one of many impressive modernist buildings in Kharkiv. It was designed in the shape of a Cyrillic letter 'C' for 'слово' - 'word'. 2/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Artem Chekh’s Absolute Zero, transl. @OlenaJennings & Oksana Lutsyshyna, is one of the best of many soldiers’ memoirs published since 2014. A sensitive account that avoids macho heroics and reflects the banality of war. See @_jamesmeek 's review in @LRB 6/

James Meek · Stubborn as a Tomb: Shadows over Eurasia

The social identities behind the vintage references in Artem Chekh and Zakhar Prilepin’s works are the fundamental...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

London eye supporting Ukraine tonight. Massive protest at Downing st.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Natalia Vorozhbyt’s play Bad Roads was brilliantly transl. by @SashaDugdale & staged at @royalcourt Theatre, which also published the play. It’s now a major film. A fragmented, disturbing, powerful exploration of life on the frontline. 5/

Bad Roads - Royal Court

royalcourttheatre.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

In 1964, artist Alla Horska designed a stained glass window at Shevchenko University (opp. the monument) for his 150th anniversary. It was deemed too defiant. Seeing the crowds it had attracted on its unveiling, the rector pre-empted official orders and smashed it himself. 4/5

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

The soviets knew Shevchenko was too big to erase from Ukrainian culture, so they distorted his image, ignoring his anti-Russian-imperialism. But soviet Shevchenko monuments, like the one in Kyiv, just became focal points for dissidents and had to be monitored by the KGB. 3/5

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

He ends with the quote 'Fight and you will prevail' from Shevchenko's 'The Caucasus':

Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

One of Taras Shevchenko's most famous lines is "Борітеся – поборете!"/"Fight and you'll prevail!" (famously recited on Maidan by murdered protester Serhii Nihoyan). The line, from "The Caucasus" (1845), was originally addressed to Muslim peoples resisting Russian imperialism. 1/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

In the last few days Russia has bombed universities in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Universities and academic unions around the world must condemn Russia's atrocities and stand with Ukrainian colleagues and students. @ucu @UCL_UCU @DrJoGrady @SSEESstrikes @andreajenkyns @ucl @UCLSSEES

Maria Avdeeva

@maria_avdv

2 years

Russian troops destroyed one of the biggest Universities in Kharkiv with missile strike. Future school teachers were studying here. Russia with manic barbarity is razing educational institutions to the ground.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

One of Taras Shevchenko's most famous lines is "Борітеся – поборете!"/"Fight and you'll prevail!" (famously recited on Maidan by murdered protester Serhii Nihoyan). The line, from "The Caucasus" (1845), was originally addressed to Muslim peoples resisting Russian imperialism. 1/

Голос Америки Українською

@holosameryky

4 years

Сергій Нігоян читає Тараса Шевченка. Сергій Нігоян – українець вірменського походження, учасник Революції Гідності, один з охоронців Євромайдану, Герой України, Герой Небесної Сотні. Загинув 22 січня 2014 року.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

Finally got round to making my own website with all my translations and articles in one place. If you're interested in my takes on Ukrainian literature, cultural memory and more, or in reading some amazing Ukrainian authors in English, please take a look!

Home

INTRO

www.uilleamblacker.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

@OKhromeychuk 's memoir of losing her brother in the war is another that challenges militarisation and explores the civilian side of war with sensitivity and sharp analysis (written originally in English). @ibidem11 Excerpt here 7/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Ukraine's displaced people are tireless ambassadors for their country in every corner of the globe. Completely randomly ran into these people, many of them displaced students, raising awareness about Russian crimes, including Kakhovka, in Kyoto this weekend.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

@AKurkov ’s Grey Bees, transl. @BorisDralyuk , is a brilliant, nuanced journey through the ‘grey zones’ of the war. Amid the black and white propaganda, he shows the uncertainty, confusion and ambiguities of life in this landscape. I reviewed it in @TheTLS

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Happy 130th birthday to the immense Ukrainian avant-garde poet Mykhail Semenko! He was a brilliant observer of the city and led a wave of new Ukrainian urban writing in the 1910s/20s/30s. He wrote several poems under the simple title 'City'. Here's my translation of one:

Ukrainian Art History

@ukr_arthistory

1 year

Today is the birthday of futurist poet, creator of "Nova Generatsya" ('New Generation') magazine – Mykhailo Semenko (1892-1937). Like many Ukrainian artists and writers, he was killed by the Soviets. Portrait of Semenko, made by Heorhyi Dybynskyi (1900-1935)

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Absolutely thrilled (and a little bit shocked) to have been invited to be a judge for the International Booker Prize. It's an honour to be in such amazing company! #InternationalBooker2023

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Highly recommended reading: @BorisDralyuk on decolonising Russian culture, Russian-language culture in Ukraine, the problem of collective Russian guilt & more. Eloquent and powerful answers to the thorniest of questions.

"There is nothing cheaper in Russia than human life"

Boris Dralyuk, literary translator, poet, and editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, about the perception of Russia’s war of aggression in the US, Ukraine’s culture wars, and the future...

www.derstandard.at

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

9 months

Promised myself not to buy too many books at @bookforumlviv . That went well.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Serhii Zhadan’s Orphanage, tr. Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler, is one of the best novels about the current war - a tense odyssey through a collapsing, occupied city. @YaleBooks 9/

The Orphanage

yalebooks.yale.edu

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

There are brave activists like Memorial in Russia, but they are a tiny, marginal minority. Putin rules not only with repressions, but through a special social contract based on ‘Russian glory’, which has broad support. @avalaina speaking @theRSAorg @Ukr_Institute

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

9 months

Some in @ucu think 'solidarity' means undermining support for people being subjected to horrific atrocities on a daily basis. @uculeft retweeted the graphic below twice today. Pitting victims of war against striking workers is the opposite of solidarity. I hope @ucu disowns this.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

Victoria Amelina's 'Poem about a Crow' in @guardian 3/4

Poem About a Crow: a work by the killed Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina

Amelina has died, aged 37, from injuries sustained in a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk

www.theguardian.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Writers of diverse backgrounds worked here in multiple languages (Ukrainian, Russian, Yiddish), incl. some of first Jewish writers to write in Ukrainian (Leonid Pervomais'kyi). Here's one of Slovo resident Leib Kvitko's Yiddish children's books (illustr. Issachar Ber Ryback) 4/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

4 months

I was reading not long ago about Ukrainian poets in the 1930s, at the peak of Stalinism, sleeping fully dressed for fear of night-time arrests. And here we are in 2024, Crimean Tatar activists doing the same thing.

Olga Tokariuk

@olgatokariuk

4 months

Just a few days ago, this article by Crimean Tatar activist and journalist Lutfiye Zudiyeva was published, and today Russian police indeed knocked on her door and detained her: "I live in Crimea. I go to bed fully dressed expecting armed men at dawn"

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

Europe shouldn’t be asking whether Ukraine can survive, but rather whether Europe can survive if Ukraine falls: we still don’t understand that this is our war. @OKhromeychuk speaking @frontlineclub tonight

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

It was a place of real creative energy. Residents included writers like Mykola Bazhan, Maik Yohansen, Pavlo Tychyna, Natalia Zabila, Mykola Kulish; actors/directors like Natalia Uzhviy, Les' Kurbas; artists like Vadym Meller, Anatol' Petryts'kyi (his portrait of M Semenko👇): 3/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Very exciting - a major exhibition of Ukrainian modernist art opening next week in Madrid! Would be amazing to see this in London...

Ukrainian Modernist masterpieces transported from Kyiv under missile fire find refuge in Madrid...

Survey show at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza will open with an address by President Zelensky and a symposium calling for a European cultural deal with Ukraine

www.theartnewspaper.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

We spend so much time debunking Russia's ridiculous historical myths about Ukraine that we miss the main point, says @OKhromeychuk : even if Ukraine fell from the sky in 1991, no one has the right to violate its borders. 3/3

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Two great books in English on culture in 1920s Ukraine/Kharkiv: Mayhill Fowler, Beau Monde on Empire's Edge: State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine Olena Palko, Making Ukraine Soviet: literature and cultural politics under Lenin and Stalin In Ukrainian, see Yaryna Tsymbal's work. END

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Many important cultural figures who lived here were shot in the 1930s. Many, like Maik Yohansen (writer, theorist, linguist), were accused of being nationalist terrorists (sound familiar?). Their true 'crime' was believing in political and cultural autonomy for Ukraine. 6/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

10 months

The new issue of @ukrlondonreview , dedicated to Ukrainian war literature, features an extract from Victoria Amelina's unpublished book, @daisy_gibbons_ 's translations of Artem Chekh & Olha Matsiupa, & much more. Great work @sasha_weirdsley @Ukr_Institute

London Ukrainian Review

The London Ukrainian Review is an open-access journal that tackles global challenges through the prism of Ukraine while adopting a distinctly internationalist perspective on the Ukrainian past and...

www.londonukrainianreview.org

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

1 year

An excerpt from my forthcoming translation of Maik Yohansen's brilliantly eccentric avant-garde landscape novel on @StatORec . You can pre-order from @HURI_Harvard here 2/4

The Learned Dr. Leonardo’s Journey into the Switzerland of the Steppes with His Future Lover, the...

Read an excerpt from Ukrainian writer Maik Yohansen's celebrated book of 1928 in a brilliant new translation by Uilleam Blacker.

statorec.com

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

9 months

Hundreds of people standing in complete silence for Halyna Kruk’s chilling and moving war poems, people queuing up the stairs to the venue to get in. Poetry means a lot at the Lviv Book Forum.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

What we should NOT do now is start discussing whether those imperialist pseudo-historical ravings are based even loosely in fact. Don't let the Kremlin distract us with tedious, tendentious history; don't let it dictate the conversation. Focus on Russia's ongoing crimes.

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

Slovo later is now quite a run-down residential building (complete with creepy playground), but in the last few years, thanks to the efforts of the amazing Kharkiv Literature Museum, it came back into use as a writers' residence. It was also given conservation status. 7/

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

2 years

If we think annexed territories are somehow rightfully Russian because they spoke Russian, let’s remember that when 🇺🇦army retakes territory from 🇷🇺they find mass graves full of murdered Russophone people. @OKhromeychuk speaking @LSEEI now. #lseukraine

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Uilleam Blacker 🇺🇦

@BlackerUilleam

5 months

There are questions to be answered in Ukraine around some issues raised here, but this is more of an illustration of how being a Russia expert not only doesn't qualify you to speak on Ukraine, but can make you less credible, because you are susceptible to Ru myths about UA. 1/3

Council on Foreign Relations

@CFR_org

5 months

Despite its current self-image as a brave defender of the West’s freedom against Russia’s imperialist aggression, Ukraine has in fact made little progress in consolidating democratic rule since it gained independence in 1991, writes Thomas Graham.

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