Revolution and War in Contemporary Ukraine: The Challenge of Change, Olga Bertelsen

Interview with Prof. Olga Bertelsen on "Revolution and War in Contemporary Ukraine: The Challenge of Change," Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America, 29 May 2018.

- The Euromaidan revolution, the invasion of Crimea, Ukraine, the war in Donbas... everyone was asking "What does all of this mean?" These questions remained unanswered because major news outlets, [BBC, CNN, CBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, etc.] employed terms used by Russian propaganda. The articles and news read in 2014 lacked a fundamental understanding of Ukrainian and Russian history
- 2:15 This is not just a Ukrainian crisis, this was not a domestic affair
- 3:03 Journalists who covered global affairs and international politics lacked nuanced understanding of Ukrainian, Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet history. News outlets began asking academic community for answers
- 3:52 We felt that (Euromaidan) something special was happening, that the revolution exemplified sacrifice in a world of consumerism. This was a rare thing to observe
- 4:42 Contributors to this book include historians, anthropologists, political scientists, linguists. This interdisciplinary approach worked
- 5:30 Essay about cyberwar, information warfare
- 6:04 Peter N. Tanchak explains how the trolling process worked, information warfare
- 7:04 Andrii Krawchuk, Religious minorities of Ukraine. How did Jews deal with the situation in Donbas? How did Crimean Tatars behave to the Russian invasion of Crimea? Did the Tatars comply or resist? Religious communities in Donbas
- 8:17 Oksana Huss: corruption in Ukraine is not a problem to be overcome. Corruption is something to live with, it will not be eradicated in Ukraine. It is a fundamental problem in every society
- 10:43 We were trying to understand what Putin was doing in the Black Sea region, special interest in the Black Sea, Crimea transformed into a huge military base with nuclear weapons. We believe Putin is trying to gain control over the Turkish Straits (Чорноморські протоки): Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosphorus. Turkey is very vulnerable right now. This problem is unsolvable for Turkey
- 12:58 Turkey is in a very difficult position. Turkey is sandwiched between Russian bases, is threatened
- 14:16 Language barrier exists because many Western scholars are not very good with Slavic languages
- 17:05 Scholars and contributors to this volume: Nedim Useinov penetrated spheres that were not well understood; Myroslav Shkandrij wrote about various types of nationalisms, how war changes perception
- 19:53 Contributors came from Canada, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine, United States, but no scholars from Russia. I wanted contributors from Russia who could not write something they didn't believe. If Russian scholars wrote something in complete honesty they would regret it. Two potential contributors were from Russia, but we came to to the painful conclusion that they should not be part of this book
- 21:52 Each scholar makes a personal choice on how to pursue scholarship. Depends on training, mentality, identity and honesty. Everyone is vulnerable
- 22:40 How am I going to go to Russia and conduct research now? I don't want to end up like Oleg Sentsov
- 24:47 Taras Kuzio review of this book is correct
- 26:50 Russian scholar Kirill Alexandrov wrote about Russians who collaborated with Germans (Кирилл Александров, Власовцы, Власовская армия). Few Russian scholars are that brave, remain under pressure for the rest of their careers

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