World War Ukraine

In early 2014, sparked by an assault by their government on peaceful students, Ukrainians rose up against a deeply corrupt, Moscow-backed regime. Initially demonstrating under the banner of EU integration, the Maidan protesters proclaimed their right to a dignified existence; they learned to organize, to act collectively, to become a civil society. Most prominently, they established a new Ukrainian identity: territorial, inclusive, and present-focused with powerful mobilizing symbols.

For seven decades, NATO's stated aim has been the achievement of world peace—but playing great power politics always involves conflict. Russia's war on Ukraine and on Europe's security order puts the alliance under threat, but also demonstrates why transatlantic cooperation is so necessary. But how did NATO get to where it is today, and what does its future hold?

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine under the guise of a special military training operation. This invasion marked the most aggressive resurgence of aggression from Russia since the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014. Before addressing this 2022 war, though, it is important to understand what sparked tensions in 2014, and why this is important to the current actions of Russia within Ukraine.

Ukraine, 1940. When war rips their country apart, Julia is sent away by her tearful parents in the dead of night, clutching her mother’s necklace and longing for one last embrace. But soon she is captured by Nazi soldiers and forced into a German labor camp, where behind a tall fence topped with cruel barbed wire, she has never felt more alone. Just as she begins to give up on all hope, Julia meets Henry, a young man from her village who shares her heart full of dreams.

Krystyna Carmi's childhood in Obertyn was full of happy moments. Her childhood was filled with friends, both Polish and Ukrainian, and she attended a Ukrainian school. Krystyna Carmi was gifted with an extraordinary memory, and in this memoir, she vividly recounts the history of her family and her life before, during, and after World War II. But her happy childhood did not last long; World War II changed it forever. The worst was still ahead for the Jewish community in Obertyn and for Krystyna's family.

What goes through the mind of a mother who must send her child to school across a minefield or the men who belong to groups of volunteer body collectors? In Ukraine, such questions have been part of the daily calculus of life. Greta Uehling engages with the lives of ordinary people living in and around the armed conflict over Donbas that began in 2014 and shows how conventional understandings of war are incomplete. Everyday War considers where peace can be cultivated at an everyday level.

Vladimir Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad.

I 1920’ernes Berlin forelsker teaterinstruktøren Detlef Sierck sig i skuespillerinden Lydia. Tiden er præget af nazismens fremmarch og da Detlef begynder at bevæge sig fra teatret til filmen, kommer han i kontakt med nazitoppen. Detlef indleder en affære med den jødiske skuespillerinde Hilde. Sammen flygter de via Rom og Schweiz til USA og i Hollywood begynder Detlef et nyt liv som Douglas Sirk og fejrer store triumfer som 50’ernes technicolor-film. Ikke mindst da han introducerer den unge Rock Hudson på det store lærred.

Ukraine, 1941. War has ripped Katya’s country and heart in two. When two soldiers knock down her door and force her into a truck, she knows deep down that this might be the last time she ever sees home. As she is driven away to a labor camp, she looks out the tiny window at the barren winter landscape and thinks only of her son, Alexander, who she was forced to leave behind and may never see again.

Anne Applebaum, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer por Gulag y finalista del National Book Award por El Telón de Acero, cuenta en Hambruna roja la reveladora historia de uno de los peores crímenes de la era soviética. En 1929, la gran colectivización puesta en marcha por Stalin forzó a millones de campesinos a entregar sus tierras. El resultado fue una hambruna sin precedentes; al menos cinco millones de personas perecieron entre 1931 y 1934 en la URSS, de los cuales cuatro eran ucranianos.

Life is becoming ever more terrifying for the Jewish community as the Second World War envelops their lives. For twelve-year-old Dina and her sisters, things get even harder when their father dies. Their mother must go back to work and despite many objections, the family adjusts to the arrival of their new housekeeper, Nina, who is not Jewish. But Nina’s role changes dramatically when the Nazis invade their small Ukrainian town.

It will soon be another cold winter in the Ukraine. But it's 1941, and things are different this year. Max, the devoted caretaker of an animal preserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overtaken this precious land. He must also learn to keep secrets - for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park.

Kiev. 1942. Larissa is a renowned embroiderer, surviving in occupied Ukraine as a seamstress in her ruin of a workshop. When an SS officer arrives to order a traditionally embroidered Ukrainian shirt, Larissa uses the opportunity to create a piece of art from her handiwork. Threading together the history and the horrors between the two enemies, she finds a way to express her defiance toward the Nazis and the local collaborators. But at what price? Prepare yourself for an unforgettable journey behind the Second World War’s eastern front.

When the Communist Party Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR halted mass operations in repression in November 1938, large numbers of mainly Communist purge victims whose cases remained incomplete were released. At the same time, hundreds of NKVD operatives who had carried out the Great Terror were scapegoated and arrested. Drawing on materials from the largely closed archives of the Soviet security police, this collection of essays by an international team of researchers illuminates the previously opaque world of the NKVD perpetrator.

In this real-life adventure, Justa, youngest of ten children in a Mennonite family in WWII era Ukraine, revisits a childhood in totalitarian Stalinist USSR. When authorities swoop down in the middle of the night to seize neighbor’s fathers, Justa begins to dread the dark. Would her beloved papa be next? As both armies—German and Russian—approach, thirteen-year-old Justa and her family hurriedly pack their wagon to flee. What valuables should they take? What must they leave behind? How will the absent brothers find them? Will the family ever be whole again?