POWER − CARE = F.I.L.T.E.R.±: How Empires Filter a People, and Why Ukrainians Refuse to Disappear (First Edition)

Description

How do empires erase a people, and why do Ukrainians refuse to disappear? Twelve weeks and one fictional street follow the six things the filter targeted again and again: faith, intelligentsia, land, tongue, educators and resistance, with what people kept beside what power took.

Full description

The Russian Empire, the Soviet state and today’s Russian state did not only rule Ukrainians. They sorted them: checked them for loyalty, kept the obedient and removed the rest. The Soviet state called it filtratsiia (фільтрація), “filtration,” and Russia uses the same word today in occupied Ukraine.

This book reads that sorting through six letters. F.I.L.T.E.R. names what the filter targeted again and again: Faith, Intelligentsia, Land, Tongue, Educators and Resistance. Each is followed across three eras, from the Russian Empire to Soviet occupation and Russia’s war since 2014: from a metropolitan shot in 1937 to the grain taken in the Holodomor (Голодомор), “killing by hunger.” The book begins with what people built: the family, the hromada (громада), “the community and its self-government,” the Cossack Hetmanate, the reading rooms and the songs.

Every minus has its plus. F.I.L.T.E.R.+ uses the same six letters for what people kept, often at the cost of their lives: faith kept, an intelligentsia that spoke, land kept, a tongue kept, educators who taught, and resistance remembered. Week 12 asks why Ukrainians resist to the end.

The book is a twelve-week course in three parts: CARE, POWER and F.I.L.T.E.R.−. Each week walks River Street, a fictional street in today’s Sumy region. Its families are invented; everything that happens to them happened to real people, and each week sets out the documented history with its sources. Sister streets from Sambir to Bakhchysarai show how the filter reached each part of Ukraine. The appendix Those We Remember keeps, with dated, sourced minimum counts, who the filter has taken since 2022.

For university and college courses in social work, history, human rights, Ukrainian and Canadian studies; for community groups, teachers and families; and for readers of Ukrainian descent. Help shape the next edition: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca with corrections and family stories.

This is the first edition. Our goal is to find people with lived experience of what it describes, including Crimean Tatar and Lemko readers, survivors, their families and descendants, and their communities, and to review the book with them for accuracy. If you have lived this history, or you find something that is not accurate or something that is missing, please write to sasha@drokacademy.ca. The second edition will carry every correction, and the author is looking for co-authors who will shape it. The Ukrainian edition, СИЛА − ДЯКА = F.I.L.T.E.R.± (Syla − Diaka), is now available.

Inside

• Twelve weeks in three parts: CARE, POWER and F.I.L.T.E.R.
• The six letters read across three eras: the Russian Empire, Soviet occupation and modern russism
• All twelve houses of River Street and six sister streets across Ukraine
• Three readings a week, discussion questions, a research task and key terms
• Appendix: Those We Remember, the series’ hub of remembrance

The author takes no income from this book. Proceeds after production costs support students. The author supports student caregivers and those who stand with Ukraine.

Teaching it? Instructors can request a free review copy, and every student in a course that adopts the book receives it free. Write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Author line

Dr. Oleksandr Kondrashov (Sasha) is the founder of DROKACADEMY, a healing and writing space in Kamloops, British Columbia, and a social work educator who currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, and in Canada since 2004, he has taught over 7,000 students across five Canadian universities. DROKACADEMY’s motto guides this series: Love. Care. Share. He studied the history of Ukraine from grade 5, wrote his MSW research on Ukrainians in Canada, and has written more than 650 posts at DROKACADEMY, more than half of them on Ukrainian themes.