The Ukraine Shelf
Ukraine is at the centre of world events today, and understanding the country’s politics, history and culture has never been more important. The Ukraine Shelf is a podcast where Uilleam Blacker and I chat with leading authors, intellectuals, scholars and journalists about what we should be reading to understand Ukraine and its place in the world.
The podcast is hosted by the UCL Institute for European Studies and produced in collaboration with the Ukrainian Institute London and UCL SSEES, with support from the British Academy.
Episode 1: Crimea
with Elmaz Asan and Rory Finnin
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine began not in 2022, but in 2014, with the invasion and occupation of Crimea. This episode explores Crimea’s significance as a strategically important nexus between east and west, between Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and as an integral part of Ukraine historically, politically and culturally. The focus of our discussion is Rory Finnin’s book Blood of Others: Stalin’s Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto Press, 2022).
