Marci Shore presents "The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution"

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marci Shore is associate professor of history at Yale University and award-winning author of CAVIAR AND ASHES and THE TASTE OF ASHES. She has spent much of her adult life in Central and Eastern Europe.

Admission: $10;

$5 members and students

Four years ago, much of the world watched the unfolding revolution in Ukraine as an episode of geopolitical turmoil, but to the parents and children, activists and soldiers, Jews and Christians living there that winter, it was an existential transformation. The classes they took, the jobs they had, the routines they relied upon were all turned upside down. Instead, there was a blurring of day and night, the sudden disappearance of fear, and the need to make stark choices. In the book, Shore tells the stories of individuals living through the Ukrainian revolution, and explores powerful questions about political upheaval. What pushes people to lose their fear and take to the streets? What brings parents and children together and what splits generations apart? Under what circumstances does fear disappear? What is worth dying for?

Dr. Shore will also talk about:

• Paul Manafort’s role in Ukraine with Viktor Yanukovych

• the fragility of liberalism and what Eastern Europeans understand that Americans don’t

• once truth is destroyed, anything is possible—lessons from Ukraine and the Soviet Union

“As a guide, an historian, and a storyteller, Shore shows us the complex choices faced by the Ukrainians by artfully interweaving their personal experiences with the intellectual, social, and political history of the region.”—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History

THE UKRAINIAN NIGHT by Marci Shore

On November 21, 2013, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych declined to sign an association agreement with the European Union, unexpectedly reversing the course of his own foreign policy. That evening a 32-year-old Afghan-Ukrainian journalist posted a note on his Facebook page: “Come on, let’s get serious. Who is ready to go out to the Maidan”—Kiev’s central square—“by midnight tonight? ‘Likes’ don’t count.”

“Likes don’t count” became the beginning of a revolution. Hundreds of thousands came out to the streets. Three months later, Kiev was burning. Far above the flaming barricades, on the rooftop of a high-rise hotel, government snipers fired downwards. Bodies fell, framed by black smoke.

In the days that followed the massacre, president Yanukovych fled to Russia, Russian president Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, and separatists encouraged by the Kremlin started a war in eastern Ukraine—a war that threatens to unravel the European order and that has not ended.

The Maidan proved to be the most existentially transformative moment in Eastern Europe since 1989. It illuminated questions both particular and universal: Has twenty-first century oligarchy made democracy impossible? What is the meaning of revolution in a postmodern age? In THE UKRAINIAN NIGHT: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF REVOLUTION (Yale University Press, January 9, 2018), award-winning historian Marci Shore gives us a completely new way of looking at the events of the Maidan. Shore shows us revolution not as geopolitics, but as lived experience. She tells the stories of individuals—parents and children, activists and soldiers, Jews and Christians, speakers of Russian, Ukrainian, and many other languages. Through their personal accounts, Shore explores powerful questions about revolution: What is worth dying for? What brings parents and children together and what splits generations apart? Under what circumstances does fear disappear? And more.

In this lyrical and intimate book, Shore evokes the human face of the Ukrainian Revolution. She gently sets her portraits of individual revolutionaries against the past as they understand it—and the future as they hope to make it.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“An excellent guide to understanding the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine, and its consequences. Shore has deep knowledge of the region, its history, and its current torment, and offers a lucid evaluation of the complicated evolution of Eastern Europe, which faces a dangerous situation. Her book is well written and honestly and deeply documented through direct and acute observations of facts on the ground.”—Norman Manea, Francis Flournoy Professor of European Studies and Writer in Residence, Bard College

“Marci Shore, one of the most original American historians today, conjures up the Maidan, the first truly postmodern revolution, with lively scenes and invocations of the layers of a complex past. Her book preserves the memory of this historical moment, which has a unique significance for our political future.” —Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Albert Guérard Professor in Literature, Stanford University

“Shore has the rare capacity to listen to hundreds of voices and turn them into both story and history—the finest possible achievement for any writer. In this book, she brings to life the protests and revolution in Ukraine from 2013-2014 by pairing personal anecdotes with political and historical analysis, showing readers how violence can affect one’s own friends and acquaintances, inspiring them to start a revolution.”—Slavenka Drakulic, author of How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

“The best way to make sense of a revolution unfolding in front of your eyes is to fall in love with it. This is exactly what Marci Shore does in this insightful, moving, and beautifully written reflection on the Ukrainian Maidan.”—Ivan Krastev, Chairman, Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Bulgaria

“This remarkable book gives you a sense of the Euromaidan in Kiev as lived experience, seen through the eyes of a host of very different participants. Shore brilliantly captures the contingency, uncertainty, and chaos that was transmuted into the remarkable, seemingly transcendent solidarity of the Maidan’s unified resistance to a corrupt and cruel régime.” —Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, McGill University

“Marci Shore shows us the history of the Ukrainian revolution set against the backdrop of ideas lived by concrete people. This professional historian does not hesitate to transcend the boundaries of her discipline by writing about herself, befriending her subjects, and openly identifying with the ideas she writes about. The empathetic criticism she practices makes for an excellent read and encourages engagement on the part of the reader.”—Slawomir Sierakowski, Krytyka Polityczna, Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw