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Secret Book Club

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images.
The house of culture in the village of Posad-Pokrovske in southern Ukraine was badly damaged in attacks by Russian forces in 2022. 

There’s a secret teen book club in occupied Ukraine, where the “official” schools teach Russian propaganda. Confided one student, “They don’t teach us knowledge at school, but to hate other Ukrainians.” 

Peter Pomerantsev and Alina Dykhman report at the Guardian, “It must be one of the most dangerous book clubs in the world. Before they can feel safe enough to talk about poetry and prose, 17-year-old Mariika (not her real name) and her friends have to first ensure all the windows are shut and check there is no one lurking by the flat’s doors.

“Informants frequently report anyone studying Ukrainian in the occupied territories to the Russian secret police. Ukrainian textbooks have been deemed ‘extremist’ – possession can carry a sentence of five years. Parents who allow their children to follow the Ukrainian curriculum online can lose parental rights. Teens who speak Ukrainian at school have been known to be taken by thugs to the woods for questioning.’

“That is why the book club never meets with more than three people – any extra members would pose further risk of being discovered.

“Apart from the danger, there is another challenge: finding the books themselves. In the town where Mariika lives, the occupiers have removed and destroyed the Ukrainian books from several libraries – nearly 200,000 works of politics, history and literature lost in one town alone.

“So Mariika and her friends have to use online versions – careful to scrub their search history afterwards. The authorities like to seize phones and computers to check for ‘extremist’ content.

“Among the poems and plays Mariika’s book club likes to read are those of Lesya Ukrainka, the 19th-century Ukrainian feminist and advocate of the country’s independence under the Russian empire.

“In 1888 Ukrainka also formed a book club, in tsarist-era Kyiv, at a time when publishing, performing and teaching in Ukrainian was banned. Ukrainka’s works, in turn, explore the 17th-century struggle of Ukraine for independence from Moscow.

“In the dramatic poem ‘The Boyar Woman,’ the heroine chides a Ukrainian nobleman who has come under the cultural influence of Muscovy and praises a humiliating peace with the tsar that has ‘calmed’ Ukraine: ‘Is this peace,’ she asks, ‘or a ruin?’ …

“Over the centuries, Russia’s tactics have adapted. During the Russian empire, Ukraine was conquered, and its language and literature were suppressed. At other times, the Kremlin used mass starvation and the mass murder of intellectuals, as in the Holodomor, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, when about 4 million people were killed by Stalin’s policies.

“During the later years of the Soviet Union, the approach was subtler: some Ukrainian schools and a small amount of publishing were allowed but if you wanted to prosper, you had to speak Russian. Ukrainian poets and activists who asked for more national rights were sent to the last labour camps as late as the mid-1980s. …

“As it has done for centuries among its colonies, the Kremlin is changing the population on the ground by deporting local people and importing new ones with no connection to Ukraine. Since 2014, more than 50,000 Ukrainians have been forced to leave Crimea and about 700,000 Russian citizens brought in, many of them with military and security service backgrounds. …

“More than 19,000 children have been forcibly removed to Russia to indoctrinate them and break their connection to Ukraine. … There are the 1.5 million children who are still inside the occupied territories, but who are being forced to abandon their Ukrainian heritage, attend military youth groups and ultimately be conscripted into the Russian army. …

” ‘They don’t teach us knowledge at school,’ said Mariika, ‘but to hate other Ukrainians. They’ve taken down all Ukrainian symbols and have hung portraits of Putin everywhere. History is all about “great Russia” and how it’s always been under attack by others.’ …

“Part of what keeps Mariika’s book club going is the desire for people outside the occupied territories to realize that there are people fighting for their right to exist as Ukrainians. Not all the books the club has been reading are overtly political. Sometimes they enjoy reading books that are just about normal life of young women in Ukraine – about dating and shopping.

“These tales take on a greater meaning in the occupied territories – a way to stay in touch with everyday life in the rest of the country. Novels have always helped to make you feel part of the community, of a nation.

“But still there is no getting away from the all-too-relevant ideas of Ukrainka’s writing. One of her main themes was to meditate on the relationship between personal freedom – the freedom of the imagination and to define your life – and the political freedom of the nation. ‘Whoever liberates themselves, shall be free,’ she wrote.

“Mariika’s book club makes those words real every day.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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School for Exiles in Armenia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 15, 2024| 8 Comments »

Photo: Daniel Ofman/The World.
Elena Chegodaeva is the founder of the Liberated School in Yerevan, Armenia. Most of the students are the kids of Russian immigrants who left Russia because of the war in Ukraine.

When tyrants like Putin have total control over the media, it’s easy to forget that there may be some people in the country who are not supportive of tyranny. In today’s story we learn about Russian dissenters who fled to Armenia after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and how they are trying to make a new life there. (Do you know why media outlets always say “full-scale” invasion? Because Russia has been doing other, more limited invasions for a long time.)

With contributions from Stepan Adamyan, Daniel Ofman reported the story for Public Radio International’s The World.

“Russian Elena Chegodaeva left Moscow in early March of 2022 — about a week after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Chegodaeva was against the war and fled to Yerevan, Armenia. … Chegodaeva is among the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have left their homeland since the invasion of Ukraine. Most of them oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine, or they fear getting drafted. 

“Many have wound up all over Europe — and Turkey, Georgia and Armenia have become some of the most-frequent destinations for exiled Russians. According to some estimates, more than 100,000 Russian citizens fled to Armenia alone. This reality has led to some changes within Yerevan, the Armenian capital, as the new residents try to put down roots.

“Chegodaeva, an educator, soon realized the need for a school for the Russian children coming to the city. So, after coordinating with families and securing teachers and a space within a couple of weeks, she started the Svobodnaya Shkola, which is Russian for Liberated School. …

“At first, the school only had 40 students — all kids of Russian immigrants. Back then, many of the families thought the war would end and they would soon return to Russia. The school operated out of an apartment. Now, 2 1/2 years later, many of the families are still here, and the student body has grown to 250, with classes held in two different buildings. Lessons are taught in Russian and English, while Armenian is also taught twice a week. …

“Yura Boguslavsky, a parent of two sons, ages 10 and 15, at Chegodaeva’s school, said that their education is one of the reasons he left Russia. … [And] when he and his family first arrived in Armenia, they also struggled. ‘I think the first two or three weeks was just a shock; we managed to find someplace to live, and all the streets in Yerevan were full of lost people with backpacks who were very sad.’ …

“Back in Russia, Boguslavsky attended anti-war protests, and was opposed to the Kremlin’s politics. Professionally though, Boguslavsky said, he was thriving. In Moscow, he ran a studio and an animation school. But once he got to Yerevan, he had to start from scratch. …

“A year after arriving in Yerevan, Boguslavsky started a new animation studio called Invisible Friends. He also teaches animation to students of all ages. He produced a Claymation, stop-motion documentary called, We flew, we came here, based on interviews that Armenian students conducted with Russian kids who had recently arrived in Yerevan.

“In the film, one child says that he didn’t know how long they were leaving Russia for — but when he found out, he says he ‘began missing his friends’ and sometimes cried at night. The kids described the toys they took with them and the ones they left behind.

“Boguslavsky said that the kids were a lot more expressive than the adults were. That’s why he chose to feature children in the film.

“ ‘All the adults … were saying almost the same things, just retelling the news. And the kids were sometimes even funny; they talked about how they understood what their parents told them. They were speaking a lot about their feelings.’

“Boguslavsky said that this film inspired him to find a way to keep teaching animation in Armenia. He said that nowadays, he feels comfortable in Armenia, but he knows that many other people are having a hard time.

“Finding affordable housing, and consistent work, is a challenge for many Russian immigrants who don’t work in the tech sector. A lot of people are also having trouble adjusting because they’re still hoping to return to Russia.

“ ‘I know many people who were suffering a lot, and not living their lives, and they were stuck in the past, and I don’t want to be like that, you know.’

“Boguslavsky said that it’s unlikely that he’ll return to Russia anytime soon. He said that he’s focused on making a life for himself and his family here in Armenia.

“Chegodaeva said that’s her mindset as well, and one of the reasons she founded the school. However, she said she still holds out hope that she’ll one day go back to Russia.”

More at The World, here.

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