Transcripts For CSPAN2 Megan 20240704

Source on cspan. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to whatever you are. Because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Good evening, everyone. My name is jasmine and on behalf of Harvard Book Store im so excited to luckily to our event with megan buskey presented her new book, ukraine is not dead yet a family story of exile and return. Joined in conversation by emily channelljustice. You can find a full evening schedule at harvard. Com events we can also sign up for our email newsletter. Connected it will conclude with some time for your questions at which will have a book signing here at the stable. To ask a question just raise your hand during the q a portion and your speakers will come on you. Cspan booktv is also filling oure event tonight including te q a so if you ask a question please wait for the microphones to reach you before you ask the question. And if you havent already you can find a copy of the night att the register in the next room. Thank you for c continuing to ce out as we keep our Committee Statement please send your cell phone for the duration of this event. And as always thank you for buying books from Harvard Book Store. Your purchase in support events like thisev and help to ensure e future of this local independent bookstore. Now i am so pleased to introduce tonights speaker spirit megan buskey is a nonfiction writer who has contributed outlets such asat the New York Times book review, the atlantic, the new republic nprs all things considered. She is a former fulbright spell after it fell as you can shed been studying and writing about the country for two decades she is doing to conversation by emily channelljustice, director of the contemporary Ukraine Program at the Museum Research institute at harvard and Acton University but shes been doing research and is the author of without estate, Self Organization and political activism in ukraine. Tonight they are here to discuss ukraine is not dead yet. In this work megan returns to her familys homeland in ukraine to uncover and document her familys past. Following the passing of hergr grandmother. Ukraine is not dead yet serves as a model of both the power and the purpose of historical memoirs. To improve our collective understanding of the past while broadening our knowledge of ourselves and our future. We are so excited to host this event here att harvard book stoe tonight. Please join me in welcoming buskey and emily channelljustice. [applause] thank you so much for having me here. Its very exciting. Be back in boston so im going to begin with a reading from the text. Im actually going to start from the epilog, which was kind of a strange to read from for a book launch. But im very conscious of the fact that were were now at the moment where were not and were recognizing and remembering the anniversary of, russias full scale invasion of ukraine. Most of this book was written before the invasion. I actually finished a draft a few days before the invasion started. And when i was doing the writing i really thought about the things that i was writing about as things that had happened in the past, things that were settled, things that were almost fascinating to me, in part because they seemed so distant. The events of the past have shown that that was not the way to think about the those events. And theres a number of things that happened to my family over the past century that continue to be at play today. So kind of an acknowledgment of that moment. I want to read this portion, which has to do with the fate of my cousin natalia. I think theres actually much you need to know in order to anchored in this section, except maybe to know that natalia and i are First Cousins and we have the same grandmother. All right. So. Two months after the war began, i flew to italy to see my cousin natalia, who had left ukraine with her two adolescent daughters. On in olga when the war started and many counts. Natalia and the girls were lucky. They went to italy because they had a family connection. Years earlier, the mother of natalia husband, vasso, had moved to the country and married an italian man. As soon as the war broke out, natalias inlaws urged her to bring the girls from truscott. The city in western ukraine where they live and come live with them in a town outside bologna. I rolled into town on a bright spring morning aboard one of italys sleek regional rail, the italian omnia, over the station to greet me. There was no greater marker of the passage of time than anya, who at 14 was a foot taller than when i had last seen her a few years earlier. The town that we were staying in was full of typical italian charm, polite piazzas, chill out periods, lush flowers tumbling from hanging baskets. But as we walked from the train station, it was ukraine that loomed. I knew the gist of natalia and the girls departure from ukraine, but hadnt bother them for details. As refugees are busy people. As we settled into their apartment on a leafy central street, natalia told me the full story. Like most ukrainians, an italian vessel had considered a russian unthinkable when it happened. Vasso, who had been working a trucking in the eu, abandoned his job and rushed back to his family. He urged natalia to leave ukraine. The girls. By that point, martial law had been imposed and as a man under 60, he was barred from leaving country. Natalia was deeply conflicted. She was a patriot and, had no desire to abandon her homeland in its hour of need. She was also loath to be separated from bassel and their son roman. But because she was over 18, was also required remain in ukraine. Natalias mother, my aunt stefan, had turned 80 the previous summer and like many older people, refused to leave. But natalia knew the environment was unpredictable. And even in western ukraine, possibly dangerous, it wasnt a good place for kids. The first weekend after the invasion, natalia agreed to check out the situation at the train station and leave the travel hub closest to their home and frisk events. By then, it had been widely reported that the station was overrun with would be refugees. Natalia suspected that they wouldnt be able to board a train and would just come back to risk events. Still, she and the girls pack small backpacks with food in their documents, knowing that people have been standing in closely packed quarters for hours to board trains. They were diapers when natalia, vasyl and the girls arrived at the station in libya. Was teeming with people trying to flee. They luckily got in through a Side Entrance that allowed them to bypass the bulk of the crowd and quickly found themselves besides the railway tracks. They ran toward a group of men in military fatigues who are knocking on door of a train about to depart. Turned away, the men dispersed. The family remained on the platform, uncertain what to do next. Then the door opened and italian. The girls were pulled aboard. Within moments of them stepping onto the train, the. The door closed them and the wheels started to turn. Had made it. They had barely had a chance. Say goodbye to vasyl. The train was moving. But going where . This was the question. Natalia focused on. She sought to study herself. None of the people around them had an idea. All anyone knew was that the train was going west. Eventually, natalia found a conductor. Where are we going . She asked him to poland. The conductor answered, unhelpfully. He didnt seem to know any more than the others. In comparison, many other ukrainian refugees that weekend, natalia and the girls traveled in relative comfort. There were only six people in their crew. Pay, which normally set for once they crossed the border into poland. Volunteers came aboard the train and offered them medication, food, water and tea. About 20 hours after they left lviv, they got off the train somewhere in rural southeastern poland. Natalia deflected, offers help and heard the girls into a waiting taxi. She asked the driver. The driver to take them to the nearest airport. That turned out to be, khattab says. Im not sure im pronouncing that correctly. On her phone, natalia found a flight from captivity to bologna that was leaving in a few hours. But when she tried to buy the tickets, the transaction wouldnt go through. Perhaps because of Cyber Attacks on ukrainian banks, there are rumors of such disruptions that day when she told me this part of the story, i thought of our grandmothers moment of panic when she had to make sense of new yorks multiple airports. The moment that she arrived with my mom and olga from the soviet union. 56 years later, here was her granddaughter, also momentarily stymied while at an airport in a foreign country with her two youngest children trying to outrun moscows reach. As natalia considered what to do, her phone rang. The caller was a friend, a ukrainian who to lived in warsaw. Natalia told him i was going on the friend offer to buy them the tickets. She sent the friend photos of their documents and the transaction went through. By 8 p. M. , 28 hours after natalia and the girls of corvettes that arrived at the sellers home outside bologna and started a chapter of their lives presenting, ending with a question mark in peaceful italy, natalia and the girls were in the habit of counting their blessings. Unlike so many ukrainian refugees, they had place where they could stay indefinitely and an area that was familiar to them. They had the means to cover their modest expenses as the girls had plenty of experience with distance education due to the covid pandemic. And after a two week war induced break. They resumed online lessons at school and frisk events. They even had their most needed belongings, parcels that started transporting refugees, luggage from ukraine to italy and the sale had sent them suitcases packed with clothes, other long for items they hadnt been able to bring them when they left. It was a delight to be with natalia and the girls and i was grateful that after so much time apart, we could enjoy each days languid flow together. We went to Different Grocery Stores to pick out provisions for dinner. Beat me several times at chess altogether at siblings for a guard, and she hoped to attend that summer. And the evenings we watched films and ukrainian aid that anya found online. But sadness hung in the air. One day, natalia walked me through some photos on her phone. They showed on his motorcycle. The girls doing yoga stretches on a beach near odessa. Family gathered and she cigarets for august 13th birthday. Access to health care. But it should be 13th birthday in december. Natalia played a video of her unwrapping her main present guitar, her face a picture of delight. I could hear the voices of my loved ones in the background. Melancholy washed me because of covid had been so long since i had seen them. Though i knew we would meet again, it seemed a possible that our future gatherings would never be so carefree. Its nice that the phone reminds you of these moments, natalia said interrupting my thoughts a moment later, she added, but also hard before i gone to italy, i had gone back to cleveland and picked up a watch of my grandmothers that my mother had held on to. It was simple, but pretty plaited rose gold. My mother had purchased it, or my grandmother had purchased it in the soviet possibly at home when she was trying to set down her spare rubles before she flew with my mom and olga to the United States. Chadbourne at all the time and i thought natalia might like to have it. I gave it to her one afternoon after we finished lunch. Is this our grandmothers . Natalia asked as soon as she pulled it out of the small jewelry bag. I kept it in. I nodded. She immediately started to cry. I went over and put my arms around her so you can have a part of her with you now, i said. Some of her strength. I dont know how she did it. She said the words. The words tumbling out. I grabbed her back and looked across the kitchen table, an older finger whose had grown somber for a moment, i imagined just being joined my grandmother in this little italian kitchen. What would she say to us . I wonder what wisdom was she in part from the years of hardship, destruction and violence had endured . The answer came to me immediately. It was simple live. Thank you, megan. Thanks, everyone for being here to celebrate the release of this book, especially in a week thats so important to any of us who have been paying attention to ukraine for this past year and hopefully longer. Thank you. Also, i think that passage is really reflective of how book brings the past and the present in. A really important conversation. So my questions are largely kind of oriented toward toward that past and present, how they play on other. But first, lets start for people who havent read the book, for people who maybe dont know that much about ukraine. Can you describe a little bit the draw of ukraine . What makes you keep wanting to go back . And actually, its funny that you read that particular passage. So truck events is small town in western ukraine. Theyre famous for this really disgusting tasting water thats supposed to give you eternal life. Basically, its the its the of my lockscreen. Its one of my Favorite Places in ukraine. Ive been there, i think, five times, and so that question that i prepared this question about the draw of ukraine without sort of thinking about that, but that really made me smile while were reading that passage. So for people who dont have family, ukraine, whats the draw . What keeps keeps you going back . Well, i think the things that got me to ukraine are a little bit different than the things that kept me going back. So i grew up in a ukrainian American Family in cleveland. I was very close to my grandmother, who was kind of like a third parent in some respects to me. And my younger brother is growing up. We sort of observed all of the tradition, traditional ukrainian holidays. We went to church all the time. We observe different ukrainian customs. So it was really part of the fabric of my life growing up, but also grandmother was kind of like a curious presence to me. I mean, she was very she was she was very kind of in some way in the sense that she was very responsible, very reliable, very loving and all the ways that you can kind of expect of a grandmother. But she had a also had this foreignness about her and like a sense of sort of of tragedy. There was something about her that was clearly she had had a really difficult early life. And that came out through things like her starting cry when she started to talk about experience and growing up in ukraine and russia or she was always sort of so attentive, like how much things cost. So like even when im at the grocery store, im like, oh, strawberries are 275 now . And, and, you know, she was always like cooking this like Copious Amounts of food for us. And my mother would be like, well, she doesnt want us to starve. And its like. But like, doesnt make sense to an american growing up in the middle class suburbia. So there was all of this is like kind of mystery wrapped up into you know, who she was. And another thing that was interesting was that i we had a very close family in ukraine. So my mom, one of her sisters, natalia her mother was had been left behind in ukraine. And my grandfather was still there. And so there was sense, too, of of a closeness that couldnt really be explained very easily. Like sometimes my mom would often my grandmother would send over packages to ukraine and my mom would often go around and kind of collect our clothes every. So often the things that we were wearing that we had outgrown and we would send them to ukraine. And then like a year or so later itd be at my grandmothers house, just sort of like boarding, you know, trying to, to amuse myself in some way. And i would come across a photograph of like one of my second cousins wearing my clothes and. They would look like me, blond hair, blue and green eyes. And it was so like this weird sense of like, wait, like, who is this person . And like, thats sort of me, but not so it was always this sort of it was a really rich set of questions, i think. And that was why i started going to ukraine in the first place when i was in college. But, you know, when i went there, i quickly just how fascinating place it was mean its this is a place thats you know trying to sort of make sense of itself in the aftermath of the failure of the soviet project. And all of the countries of the former soviet union just have such Big Questions facing themselves and and ukraine is the home of so many conflicts around language around history, around geopolitics and those questions and those conflicts have very high stakes. People are really, really engaged and trying to to to to represent their positions vis, to be those questions and for me as an american, it was so so, so interesting to be able to go there and to and to start to to learn based on what was sort of unfolding in ukraine. And then the other thing i would say, too, is that, yeah, ukraine has such a deep rich culture and history. Like the thing you mentioned about the risk of its water. I mean, theres theres just so much there. Its a really its a big country. Its its own vernacular its its own history, its own culture. And, um, you know, once you start paying attention and theres, theres so much that can be unfolded, so, so thats why you should care about ukraine. Excellent. And really leads into my next question, which is about how you found the story, because as you will all read in the book, is a story not only about megans family, but also about finding out more about the family. Thats not just in family law and then placing it within ukrainian history. So how did you come to put the pieces together of the Family History and especially, you know, were talking about a long period of time of you working in ukraine and you talk in the book about the experience of the archive itself, changing a lot over time. I think thats really interesting to hear more about what are the things wanted you that made you want to keep digging for details, especially when you started find out that there might be details that you might not, that you learned about your family and were there any specific questions that ultimately you like you never found answers to . Okay. Those are also im going to try to remind me if i dont answer one of the questions. So you the impetus for this book was, you know, i had started going to ukraine when i was in college, so i was really interested, but i didnt really this project specifically until my grandmother died about ten years ago. I was really close to her. Id done some interviews with her and wanted to make to document her story and, really preserve it because i was the one in my family who had really cared the most. So that sort of quickly ballooned into like a much very kind of, ambitious project which ended, yeah, consulting archives across multiple countries and doing a lot of secondary reading, which was really super, super important. Theres a sort of section in this book which is contain some of the scholarship that i use to kind of try to imagine what the world had been like that my grandmother had lived in. Theres just so much great. I want to make sure that im calling out those people because i wouldnt have absolutely would not have been able to do this book without some of those some of that work. And i also went back and did a lot of interviews in ukraine with people who had know, known my grandmother when she was younger, people that knew the general environment. But then the archives was was incredibly rich. I think the archives in ukraine in were obviously particularly and they themselves are an interesting story because i started this research at a particularly fortuitous time. Some respects the that can be the richest is actually the stuff thats contained in the case files that were held by the secret police. Whats commonly known as the kgb kind of in the United States that goes by a couple of other names now and in the past. But until about the mid 20 tens, it was really, really difficult to get access to those archives, particularly if youre just like a general interested member of the public. Youre kind. You were an academic, but it was even, you know, you could do it, but was tough. But after the euromaidan revolution in 2014, there became a really vested interest and trying to make that those archives as accessible as possible. So it basically became and as of 2015, you could just like send an email to the kgb archive kiev and be like, hey, im looking for an hour and do you have anything on like this person . And just give some basic information and they would reply to and a very reasonable amount of time usually i think two weeks and then they let you know what they found and then within a month would send you the file. I think it was a one hour, one or two months. I forget it was really they were always super attentive, clear and much better. I would say that experience working with American Archives or you would like send something or just like have no idea where it went and never back. Not sure though. I did get some great stuff from American Archives as well, but what i ended up getting was like some secret police archives, kgb case files, basically on my family, which was super, super interesting there was like interrogations of people. Theres trial documents, you know, different biographical. Its really interesting what those files contain. You have to take some of it with a grain of salt because. Some of those that information was obtained under duress. But its also just these were this remarkable, you know, record of that time and what people were were experiencing. And so i found all of that be very interesting thing also sometimes very difficult to your question, which is that i did a lot of, you know, World War Two in ukraine was extremely, extremely difficult, devastating ukraine. And poland were probably the most devastated countries in World War Two, though thats maybe arguable, not totally an expert on that, but, you know, this the region that my grandmother was found was first occupied by the soviet union, then nazi germany, then the soviet union again. There was a really active ukrainian nationalist which was trying to fight those groups of various. So it was a really, really bloody and no one was spared. And so as i was doing this archival work, i did come across information that sort of demonstrates that so that members of my family were kind of complicit in various, you know, atrocities. One could say, both at a political level, but also at a personal level, to be honest. And thats like a little bit of a a more sort of difficult thing to describe, be a little bit more nuanced to talk about, but yeah, so we can talk a little bit more about that. Um, were there other questions i didnt answer in air . Lets, lets jump to the question of inheritance because that is sort of exactly next question. When you start to learn some of these details. So like you mentioned, these, these crimes probably things we would now categorized as war crimes on behalf of the ukrainian nationalist movement. Like you said, this is a very sort of nuanced discussion and youve cited a lot of really good academic sources about these topics. So i think the book contextualizes them really well. But the other part of the context is about the kind of inheritance that you talk out, talk about throughout the book. So physical resemblance, mannerisms, inherited names. So how do you sort of reckon that inheritance that you have . Thats the thing that draws you to ukraine in the first place with finding out about some of these really painful details. And did that at any point . Did you kind of question your connection to ukraine or your relationship with your family . Yeah, i think thats a really good question. And i hadnt really thought about it in those terms until you pointed it out. I think i think it was, you know, part of what was drawing me to this story was a real interest in trying to fill some of the silences that had been a part of my of Family History growing up. I mean, like my grandmother was an extremely important person to me growing up and she had a big life and a lot going on and talked about some things that shed in the past. But there were clear things that she hadnt talked about that she also didnt talk about. So my grandfather, for example, was someone that was never spoken about her. My grandmothers husband was also someone that was never spoken about. And those are both people that i learned a lot more about through the course of this research. So i think as i did find more, i think it was important to me to be able to to build story that felt like nuanced and real and wasnt, you know, wasnt a myth, wasnt just like some heroic story that was going to fill in this blank that didnt feel real to me. Like, as person in the world who sees the complexity of Human Behavior all the time and feels myself, that i myself am a very complex person, capable of both good and bad and so there was a kind of i dont there and i knew, of course, the Broad Strokes of ukrainian history and region. And i knew the likelihood of a collaboration with a nazis or the ukrainian nationalist movement, extremely, extremely difficult complex. So the likelihood that people were going to be in things that were, you know, that looked in retrospect, not that great was high. So i knew that i was kind of prepared in that sense. So i think that there was a way in which like finding those, it didnt really shock me so much, but it did make me feel really sad, i think. So one of the things that you know is, theres there is one of my my grandmothers brother was a collaborator with the nazis were another Ukrainian Police as part of the Ukrainian Police under nazis, which was a terrible thing to be involved and was part of what orchestrated the holocaust. And galicia, though, wasnt involved with directly killing people, at least in that capacity. And i remember finding that got it. Getting the document that sort of demonstrated he had definitely been in the police and just feeling like such sadness for him because my grandmother had talked. So i mean never talked about the police very possible that she didnt even know that he was in the police. I could certainly see that being the case as you would want to protect your family, you wouldnt tell them necessarily. So i just felt the confirmation of that was like it just made me feel so sad for him that all the promise that he had had early in his life was consumed under the the banner of this this horrible movement and was marshaled towards these these horrible ends. So i think but i think its important to own that. And i think its important to talk about it. And, you know, its its still an evolving movement in ukraine telling these stories. You know, one of the things to say about history in ukraine is that it is a process thats, you know, relatively new. I mean, under the soviet union, people couldnt talk about things. There was so much that was taboo. And the soviet state had a very specific interpretation of history that was often just totally false. And people, like, wouldnt talk about things for fear of keeping their, you know, keeping their family safe and not incriminating themselves in a way that they werent even aware of. And so its really just been in the past 30 years that people have started feel openness and even just i mean, amid many other i would say like coming to terms of the fall of the soviet union, the financial collapse that happened, and trying to figure out a political system that works so theres been a gradual process of developing a more nuanced history of ukraine. I think that thats certainly been a strength and in the past 5 to 7 years in terms of much more holocaust remembrance, much more discussion, i think among the older generation of ukrainians about what their experiences were like, lot more interested in documenting those stories. So my hope is that like this book as a contribution towards that end, continuing to have that nuanced, honest discussion that is not so much about myths, but really about what really real people experience. Yeah, and i mean, its, i think related to what we just talked about with the archives. I mean, yes, ukraine has been independent for 30 years, but access to information about all the things that happened where ukraine was part of the soviet union have not been accessible to regular people up until much more recently. So this process about reckoning with ukraines past, its really i mean, i cant stress enough how how actual and how important it is and how how in my experience and most ukrainians are very tapped into it, too. Right. Like they understand that its process thats unfolding and they they and their family have a role in it. So i think thats something that you put really nicely. So if indulge me and let me let me quote the way that megan puts this question at the end of the book, because really think its so fantastic. So she writes, if there was something troubling afoot in ukrainian history, i came to think that it was not in its dark chapters, which can be found in the history of any country. It was in the failure to recognize and account them to find a way to tell a story its past that included them. How could a country know itself unless it knew all of the things it had been . I think this resonates everywhere. It resonates in the us, right . Were reckoning with the role of slavery in, building up the us and how the contemporary us has inherited racial institutions that are based on the past so in a kind of Bigger Picture question, how do you think that we can all be attentive to the stories, the stories part of history . What are the stories that need to be told then . How can we take our reckoning with the and use it to kind of look toward a Better Future and i think theres so much in just sort of pointing out what youve said, which is that is a very universal, universal process. And it is something that its not just like ukraine needs to do this. I mean, we all need to do it. Its evolving process for us all. I mean, i think theres always things that were, you know, that like time politics, you know, societal shows us our blind spots all the time. Im sure like my grandchildren might write this book about me and my 60 years and be like, oh, i cant believe she like eight needs, you know what a terrible person like. How could she do that . So, you know, theres theres always a shifting sense of mores. And i think the responsibility for all of us is just to try to, like, really listen and capture as much nuance as possible and talk about these things and as clear away as possible and as understanding a way as possible. And i think ukraine was really on its way towards that, you know, prior to war. And i think this war, honestly, is i mean, im curious what you think. But i think it will complicate that endeavor so much because theres theres so, so much emotion in ukraine right now and so much pain and i think for very understandable reasons. And theres a really intense sort of antirussian, a very intense antirussian there. Now, again, for her, totally understandable reasons and i think, you know, theres process now where like theyre throwing away everything that has anything to do with russia, you know, renaming all the streets, popping every bit of russian literature they can find. Theres not saying that to be judgmental. It its interesting. Its understandable that thats happening, but it does sort of make it difficult, go forward with a in in history and thinking about history or even thinking about Current Events with like a sort of amount of nuance and kind of trying to understand the motivations on both sides and i dont say that as like a of ukrainians, but rather just thats something that people will need to Pay Attention to going forward. But i also think that this the war will make people even more interested in understanding their familys past and, like the ukrainian archives have been digitizing like mad since the war started. Unfortunately, there are a number or a number of records that were lost earlier in the war, which is like a huge just just really terrible that that happened. But theres going to be a lot more stuff available online, a lot more things that are accessible to people and, you know, hopefully people will be able to go back and look more carefully at the stories of, you know, if theyre of their families and think about them critically. So i think itll also be exciting, yeah, i like your i like your optimism. I hope i like your optimism. I think it is about ukrainians are really thinking now about what the future looks like in the past is part of the future and what theyve inherited and how theyre their tellit themselves as part of that. For rejecting two questions of course i kept help myself i have to ask about the kind which of course is a reference to the net of ukraines National Anthem here can you tell us about what resonated with you about that particular phrase and the title of the book . Yeah, thank you. So i chose the title before the fullscale invasion started and i chose at the time when i didnt think that the literal meaning was that meaningful to me. Unfortunately now it is quite meaningful. But i think admitted resonates on a couple of different levels. I think for me it was, ukraine is notne dead yet, speaks to ukraines critical struggle for independent sovereignty over the many, many countriesfo for which its been struggling for that but also speaks to kind of over personally like how in my family like my family left the soviet union, left ukraine, came to the United Statess but ukraine didnt die for our family. And particularly from it didnt and theres a way which the cover speaks to that of this woman on a journey and the woman is so admit to be multiple people, could be me, my grandmother, it could be ukraine but the idea being that its important for people to continue to move forward. I think there is another way in which ukraine is not dead yet is important which is i wanted to sort of capture how ukraine didnt really die for my grandmother either in her heart in both ways that were good and better had a difficult time, difficult childhood and theres a way o which she was haunted by that for the rest of her life but also she was so connected to ukraine to the end of her life its also meant to gesture towards that including of course the literal reading. Thank you so much. We will take audience questions. We doe have a boom of mic coming around so if you please wait for the boom mic gets to you so everybody, virtual audience can hear you. Just the ukraine, there were born in ukraine but they considered russian composers, and theres a real, do it to moscow but there was a lot of Cultural Exchange between ukraine and russia. And yes just like in lithuania they loathe the russians and welcome the t nazis is with getting rid ofru the russians at the end of course the russians came back. But its so complicated. How did you see that sort of, the pride of russian culture is partly ukrainian culture . How does that sort itself out in your mind in the ukrainian mind . I mean if you consider is ukraine here in the sense or proud composer of that country . I mean i think theres definitely an interest now in sort of defining some of these more russian cultural figures that haveex ukrainian roots as explicitly elite gesturing towards like where you were born, if they identified as ukrainian. Certainly identifying makingyi t clear in various cases that identified as ukrainian, i think it is like to point it is pretty complicated. There are people that grew up in ukraine, spent her whole life in ukraine but still really just identified with russia. I think thats a very, i think thats going to be a debate that will continue over the next, i think s its really cool that is starting and people are really asking these questions andot trying to get really specific and that sort of just assumed that all well, russia sort of the superior culture, at least globally speaking so we should just identify somebody being from russia that is primarily where people traditionally thought of that person as being from, and now theres more like okay lets go stop and think about this. Really try to parse what that persons identity was. But i i dont know, i dont hava clear answer. I wouldnt say that just because someone was born in ukraine at any point they should be identified as ukrainian. I dont know, what do you think . I think thest contingent is e question. The question reminds me of this conversation i have with this really good friend of mine whos ukrainian in august of 2021, so a few months before the war started we were talking about sikorsky within the helicopter whose morning to you have during the russian empire did a lot of training in russia as far as i know at that inventive helicopter, technology of the helicopter in the United States. When russia after the olympics in 2014, when they did that whole abc of russian heritage, sikorsky was on the list that i think im right about that or im so sorry if ive i made in my memory here. And we were joking about it because well, sure hes a russian because it was the russian empire but the technology was invented in the u. S. And so russia is already overstepping their claim that the helicopter is somehow russian even though this guy leftth the russian empire probay because of repressions that he faced. Bo the joke was he was born in ukraine anyway so hes really ukrainian. My friend didnt think of this person as ukrainian because he himself had never been an outspoken, im on the ukran person in with other cultural figures had this trade tee contentious relationship with his ukrainian identity. Thats not an answer. The answer to your question is i think lets watch and see kind of how those conversations unfold because they are, this is the kind of people are starting to think about what those identities mean and what they meant in the past and how being ukrainian in the russian empire meant something completely different than it means today. Thank you. Exactly. Thank you. I havent read the book yet but i thought the boston globe article that you offered and i thought there was a reader into the skeptic i read it to mike as were driving down the road today. When i was serving in the peace corps in kazakhstan, ihs was struck at the nature of the Refugee Status of the entire country, at least many of the people were moved there after awful things happen to get there i was lucky enough to grow up in this area were some of us might affect access to think of facing history and ourselves about the holocaust,n, and as a nonjewish person with a germinate i always wondered what was it like to be in a terrible place as one of the oppressor of people and how would you let h it happen . Im hoping to read your book and read about the stories of why and how and what happened. But i wondered, i now Pay Attention to what the russians in russia are saying to me, and many of them are saying things like i imagined the people in germany said awful things about ukraine and ukrainians, and its shocking. As a war of civilization going on in europe. Onto underscore the with happening and ukraine right now is alarmingir and requires attention and support but something is happening in russia and it has been happening for a long time. I think hes deliberately made it more effective to propaganda and people are not going to let go easily. The population inhi russia that has this alarming interpretation of history and i dont know how to get to those people. I dont know what to say about that unfortunately. The book youve written in the story behind it, study what your family did history, my question you say it was written during the ukraine war, what all parts were influenced later on . I think i mentioned i finish the books a few days after the war. I didnt grow so that to some extent permitted in the going to europe after the war started in april and may, i wasnt really sure if our sneak into the book or if it would feel important but i didnt changing very much apart from the. There is a prologue of the story you could think about through the lens of top lena. So much of what might family experienced as a lot with whats happening. Migration, Refugee Status and sexualse violence and its not o much this direct connection so much as the reader allows you to see the past nine years or 31 years this interest in dominating and lots of the book helps you understand the bigger context overtime there are patterns. Do think its very different for the same . An active invasion right now but they are patterns. And its beyond ukraine. Soit readily does have a traditn outside where ukraine was under russiant domination floor not a scholar so thats my take. It would be in the story. Now it is different. To think that ukraine is part of russia but those different. My family was instrumental in helping me with the book and it was kind of a fixer for me. All of my families have been supportive and the generally sit have sleep through some of the revelations are uncomfortable for my family and everyone has a slightly different reaction will have a lot o of issues but itsn all time to think about all of this, can i trouble outside of my immediate vicinity and put myself in extreme danger . It will be interesting to see how it unfolds but so far just extremely supportive putting it together. How is your family doing n n . They are number of female members who left the country of comeback which is a common trajectory. A lot of people out into a new normal live gotten used to power outages. When the power goes out, they can hit the Battery Power so people were able to with sort of semblance of being normal but its a stressful environment and a burden onne everybody. Everyone knows someone whos left their home but society is deceptive and theres a lot of resilience and commitment to live as fully as possible. A lotce of lived experience wasa week state so they are good working around things. Water was only available six hours a day so people dont remember how to deal with shortages and it is hard to contend with. This ability to move forward but theresth suffering and i dont think you can talk with one without the other. They are partying and the braves and its true but sidebyside with messages about schoolmates for finding out about people who were killed, a difficult reality. Im curious, is there a process of being digitized . Given similar themes, is that it executes to document . There are so many in terms of documenting war crimes journalists are committee to that. You probably know better than i do in terms of material only, i havent tried to get into the system but they are trying to create a onestop shop where you can put in anybodys name and get as much information as possible. I follow the director of the state archives or how much stuff recently, it is incredible what they been able toem do. It does seem they are getting support in 20 so hopefully it will be a good resource. When the war started we were contacted, asking if we could help find the space because it wasnt someone with a laptop because if our summer is hit, it willhe be and included things le Cultural Heritage and what they needed was base, somebody to pay to have their material uploaded so a lot of museums put effort into preserving what they have. You can do a lot more. Itow is a nice way to support tm but their taken advantage of the openness and interest in ukraine since the war started so you know how to have family members in the archives anymore which is a nicep way to preserve. Join me in thinking megan once more for her book. [applause] two days of tb beginnings with Library Congress National Book festival Live Saturday 9 00 a. M. Eastern and sunday 2 00 p. M. Eastern coverage of the 2023 roosevelt reading festival in new york. 9 00 p. M. Jack shares his book untenable. Watch book tv the weekend on cspan2 incredible schedule on your local girl a watch on. Anytime at booktv. Org. Nonfiction book lovers cspan has never podcast for you. Afterwards podcast and q a wideranging conversations. Weekly conversations that feature authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. On the about books podcast takes you behind the scene of the Publishing Industry with insider interviews of gains and bestseller list. On podcast finding a three cspan now up and hes been. Org podcast. Weekends