Search results for ""Author Rory Finnin""

In the spring of 1944, Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars, a small Sunni Muslim nation, from their ancestral homeland on the Black Sea peninsula. The gravity of this event, which ultimately claimed the lives of tens of thousands of victims, was shrouded in secrecy after the Second World War. What broke the silence in Soviet Russia, Soviet Ukraine, and the Republic of Turkey were works of literature. These texts of poetry and prose – some passed hand-to-hand underground, others published to controversy – shocked the conscience of readers and sought to move them to action. Blood of Others presents these works as vivid evidence of literature’s power to lift our moral horizons. In bringing these remarkable texts to light and contextualizing them among Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian representations of Crimea from 1783, Rory Finnin provides an innovative cultural history of the Black Sea region. He reveals how a "poetics of solidarity" promoted empathy and support for an oppressed people through complex provocations of guilt rather than shame. Forging new roads between Slavic studies and Middle Eastern studies, Blood of Others is a compelling and timely exploration of the ideas and identities coursing between Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine – three countries determining the fate of a volatile and geopolitically pivotal part of our world.

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In the spring of 1944, Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars, a small Sunni Muslim nation, from their ancestral homeland on the Black Sea peninsula. The gravity of this event, which ultimately claimed the lives of tens of thousands of victims, was shrouded in secrecy after the Second World War. What broke the silence in Soviet Russia, Soviet Ukraine, and the Republic of Turkey were works of literature. These texts of poetry and prose – some passed hand-to-hand underground, others published to controversy – shocked the conscience of readers and sought to move them to action. Blood of Others presents these works as vivid evidence of literature’s power to lift our moral horizons. In bringing these remarkable texts to light and contextualizing them among Russian, Turkish, and Ukrainian representations of Crimea from 1783, Rory Finnin provides an innovative cultural history of the Black Sea region. He reveals how a "poetics of solidarity" promoted empathy and support for an oppressed people through complex provocations of guilt rather than shame. Forging new roads between Slavic studies and Middle Eastern studies, Blood of Others is a compelling and timely exploration of the ideas and identities coursing between Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine – three countries determining the fate of a volatile and geopolitically pivotal part of our world.

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Katyn– the Soviet massacre of over 21,000 Polish prisoners in 1940 – has come to be remembered as Stalin’s emblematic mass murder, an event obscured by one of the most extensive cover-ups in history. Yet paradoxically, a majority of its victims perished far from the forest in western Russia that gives the tragedy its name. Their remains lie buried in killing fields throughout Russia, Ukraine and, most likely, Belarus. Today their ghosts haunt the cultural landscape of Eastern Europe. This book traces the legacy of Katyn through the interconnected memory cultures of seven countries: Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. It explores the meaning of Katyn as site and symbol, event and idea, fact and crypt. It shows how Katyn both incites nationalist sentiments in Eastern Europe and fosters an emerging cosmopolitan memory of Soviet terror. It also examines the strange impact of the 2010 plane crash that claimed the lives of Poland’s leaders en route to Katyn. Drawing on novels and films, debates and controversies, this book makes the case for a transnational study of cultural memory and navigates a contested past in a region that will define Europe’s future.

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Ukraine has often been called a laboratory for global challenges in the spheres of environment, information, and security. The site of the worst nuclear catastrophe in history, the primary target of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns as well as the country to spark the collapse of the Soviet Union and to stand up to its neo-imperialist successor: Ukraine has been the first to face and, at times, to set in motion processes with worldwide consequences. After Russia’s full-scale invasion compromised the global system of security, the value of Ukrainian knowledge and experience can no longer be dismissed. The urgency to learn with and from Ukraine is now existential for the rest of the world. This unique collection presents essays, in English and Ukrainian translations, by emerging authors from Ukraine and the UK who employ cross-cultural dialog and the art of storytelling to open up Ukrainian perspectives on the challenges facing humanity worldwide. The volume’s contributors are Olesya Khromeychuk, Sofia Cheliak, Kateryna Iakovlenko, Olena Kozar, Kris Michalowicz, Phoebe Page, Jonathon Turnbull, and Mstyslav Chernov. “If you want to understand the impact of Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine from the inside, read this vivid, moving, urgent collection of essays.” —Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian “Moving, heartfelt and often deeply personal, these essays off er a compelling portrait of life in Ukraine under the shadow of war. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the reality of Russiaʼs invasion and its terrible human consequences.” —Luke Harding, The Guardian The editor: Sasha Dovzhyk completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. In 2022–2023, she was Associate Lecturer in Ukrainian Literature at the School of Slavonic and East-European Studies, UCL. Since 2021, she is Special Projects Curator at the Ukrainian Institute in London. Her previous books include Decadent Writings of Aubrey Beardsley (ed. with Simon Wilson, MHRA 2022) and Ukrainian Cassandra: New Translations of Works by Lesia Ukrainka (Live Canon 2023). Her articles have been published in, among other outlets, Modernist Cultures, British Art Studies, the Oxford Handbook of Decadence, CNN, The Guardian, New Lines Mag, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Ecologist. The foreword author: Dr Rory Finnin is Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge.

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