Tag: Ukrainian Heritage and History
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What Independence Gave Me
Why August 24 is a critical day in my life Photo: With Mama at Saratoga Beach, August 24, 2026, before we drove up to stand at the 50th parallel marker. Thirty-five years of independence, and the person who taught me to ask questions long before the state allowed them. Фото: З Мамою на пляжі Саратога,…
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Ukraine Is Independent. Yesterday I Watched People Keep It.
The events listed here took place from August 30, 2026 to September 6, 2026. August 24, 2026 Thirty-five years. Today, the twenty-fourth of August, 2026, Ukraine is independent. Not independent in hope, not independent on paper, not independent one day when the fighting stops. Independent today, thirty-five years after we said it out loud and…
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Thirty-Five Years: Where to Stand This Weekend in BC and Beyond
The events listed here took place from August 21, 2026 to August 25, 2026. On Monday, Ukraine turns thirty-five. On 24 August 1991, in an ordinary school notebook and in about ninety minutes, Levko Lukyanenko drafted the text that the Verkhovna Rada adopted that same day by 346 votes. In December, more than ninety per…
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HE WAS ALREADY THERE
An Invitation to Continue A Call to Shevchenko Voices Around the World What Eleven Days Taught Me Eleven cities. Eleven monuments. Eleven encounters with the same bronze face in eleven different languages, on eleven different pedestals, in eleven different versions of what it means to carry Ukraine into the world. Kranj. Vienna. Washington. Bratislava. Zagreb.…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Winnipeg, Canada. Shevchenko, March 19 Story
Day Eleven. The final city. The city that made me Canadian. Before Canada, There Was a Story About an Apartment My Mama told me this story more than once, with the particular pleasure of a detail that turns out to matter. The apartment where I was born in Lviv was previously inhabited by a family…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Lviv, Ukraine. Shevchenko, March 18 Story
Day Ten. The same poet. The city where it all began. Before Everything Else Every other story in this series has been about arriving somewhere. A train station, a bus stop, a tram that carries you through an unfamiliar city toward a bronze face you have read about but not yet seen. The encounter has…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Kyiv, Ukraine. Shevchenko, March 17 Story
Day Nine. The same poet. In the city that is his. This One Is Different Every other story in this series has been about finding Shevchenko far from Ukraine. In Kranj and Vienna and Washington and Bratislava and Zagreb and Prague and Paris and Lisbon, the encounter has carried the particular quality of diaspora recognition:…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Lisbon, Portugal. Shevchenko, March 16 Story
Day Eight. The same poet. At the edge of Europe, above the river that flows to the ocean. Lisbon, and the People Who Made It Home I came to Lisbon twice, in the autumn of 2022 and again in the autumn of 2023, and both times the city gave me more than I had arrived…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Paris, France. Shevchenko, March 15 Story
Day Seven. The same poet. The city that gave him a square. The Long Way to Paris I did not plan Paris. Paris arrived the way certain gifts arrive, sideways, through the logic of a schedule that was already full, through an itinerary that had been built around something else entirely and then suddenly, improbably,…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Prague, Czech Republic. Shevchenko, March 14 Story
Day Six. The same poet. The city that printed his words when his empire banned them. The 6 A.M. Train There is a particular discipline to the early morning train. Not the romantic kind of early, not the pre-dawn departure into mystery, but the practical kind: the alarm at five, the dark streets, the station…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Zagreb, Croatia. Shevchenko, March 13 Story
Day Five. The same poet. The golden hour found him first. The Night Train from Split There is a particular quality to arriving somewhere by night train that no other form of travel replicates. You board in one world, surrender to motion and darkness and the rhythm of wheels on track, and when you wake,…
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He Was Already There. A Pilgrimage to Bratislava, Slovakia. Shevchenko, March 12 Story
Day Four. The same poet, a different logic of arrival. The Detour That Was Not Optional There is a particular kind of decision that does not feel like a decision at all. It arrives fully formed, already made, and all you are doing is catching up to what you already know you will do. Standing…