Ukrainian Sunrise: Stories of the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions from the Early 2000s

by Kateryna Zarembo, Tetiana Savchynska (Translator)

Overview

This book offers a nuanced exploration of Donetsk and Luhansk regions prior to the 2014 Russian invasion. While the region, collectively known as Donbas, frequently appears in news headlines, it remains under-researched by scholars, and myths about it abound. Combining rigorous research and captivating narration, Kateryna Zarembo debunks common myths about the region, such as its long-standing gravitation towards Russia and its rejection of everything Ukrainian. Through multiple trips to the region and interviews with the locals, the author paints a very different picture of the region than the one often seen in the media: Donetsk and Luhansk have been shedding their Soviet past and reestablishing themselves as Ukrainian up until the 2014 invasion. Kateryna Zarembo takes the reader to pockets of the region most of us will never see, and amplifies the voices of locals whose agency has historically been denied first by the Soviet myth of Donbas, and then by the political elites of Ukraine. Since the 2014 Russian invasion, and especially since the full-scale war, the region has become the site of the most intense fighting, and many of the places mentioned in this book are now reduced to ruins. This book is an essential read to get to know the Ukrainian East and its people, now forever altered by the Russian invasion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798887197050
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	11/19/2024
Series:	Ukrainian Studies
Pages:	134
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Kateryna Zarembo is a Ukrainian policy analyst, university  lecturer, writer, and a mother of four. She holds an MA in European  Studies from UniversityCollege Dublin (Ireland) and a PhD from the  National Institute for Strategic Studies (Kyiv, Ukraine). Her  professional path combines three passions of hers: policy analysis, academic research, and literature. She taught at the Central European University,  Technical  University of Darmstadt, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla  Academy, and the Ukrainian Catholic Universityand published in a  variety of international outlets on the topics of international relations,  security issues, and civil society. She is an associate fellow at the New  Europe Center and a volunteer with the Medical battalion “Hospitallers.”

Table of Contents

Preface. The Ukrainian East: Forget everything (you thought) you knew about Donbas 

Chapter 1. The myth of Donbas: An attempt at deconstruction

What the mines hide

Donbas and the Ukrainian language: A river filled with stones 

The myth of separatism: “The autonomy we didn’t want”

Chapter 2. The story of Poshtovkh

“We only needed ten more years”

The fight for Vasyl Stus

Chapter 3. The “interrupted renaissance” of Donbas: Art as protest and protest as art

The founder of Donetsk’s poetry slam

Luhansk’s STAN: art against the regime

Isolyatsia: A reinterpretation

Chapter 4. The outskirts of Europe: Does European Donbas exist? 

Ambivalent Euroscepticism

NATO and EU in Donetsk 

The Euromaidans of Ukrainian East

Chapter 5. The villages of Ukraine’s East as carriers of Ukrainian markers

The Halychany of Donbas. Zvanivka

The Aeneid on the H20 highway. Oleksandro-Kalynove

Chapter 6. “Go set a watchman”: Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Greek-Catholic Christians, and Muslims of Ukraine’s East

Protestants: A conversion

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv patriarchate: A confrontation

The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church: Providence 

Muslims: A choice

An Almost-Afterword. Shakhtar Donetsk FC, soccer, and the role of ultras in the fight for the country

Afterword. In a train compartment with people from Donetsk, or Where Ukraine’s sun rises

Key sources 

Editorial Reviews

Understanding the true story of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts has never been more important. Ukrainian Sunrise reads like a scholarly work, yet the way it is written remains accessible to a broad audience. Zarembo’s approach ensures that the voices of those in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are heard directly—she serves not as an interpreter, but as a conduit for their stories.”

 —Kate Tsurkan, The Kyiv Independent

From the Publisher