Transcripts For CSPAN2 Megan 20240704

Events with live streams from u. S. Congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more from the world of politics. All at your fingertips. Also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspan tv networks and cspan radio. Plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now available at the apple store and google play. Downloaded for free today. Cspan now. Your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. Americans can see democracy at work. Citizens truly influence why the public thrives. Get informed straight from the sources on cspan unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are. Getting the opinion that matters the most. This is whatgo democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Good evening, everyone. My name is jasmine. I am so excited to welcome you to our event with megan presenting her new book. A family. Story of exile and returned. Join in conversation. Our springs unseasoned . You can find our full Event Schedule online and you can also for our email newsletter. Tonights event will conclude with questions after which are here at this table. Tasker question just raise your hand during the q a portion and the speaker will come to you. Cspan book tv also filming our event tonight including the q a. If you ask a question way for the microphone to reach you before you ask a question. If you have not already you can find a copy of the register the next room. Thank you for continuing to keep our communities safe. Just a reminder to please silence your cell phone for the duration of this event. As always, thank you for buying books from the bookstore. Your purchase helps to ensure the future of this local independent bookstore. Now, i am so pleased to introduce tonight speakers. A nonfiction writer who has contributed to the New York Times book review, atlantic new republic and all things considered. She is a u brightit fellow and e has been studying and writing about the country for two decades. She is joined in conversation by emily justice. Director of the contemporary program at the Ukrainian Research institute at harvard university. She has been doing training since 2012. And is the author of without mistakes. Political activism in ukraine. Tonight we are here to discuss ukraine is not dead yet. A family story of exile and returned. This work, megan must return to her familys homeland in ukraine to uncover and document her familys past. Author hilton writes that ukraine is not dead yet. A model both the power and purpose. A collective understanding of the past while driving the knowledge of ourselves and our future. We are so excited to host this event tonight. Please join me in welcoming megan and emily. [cheering and applause] thank you so much for having me here. Very exciting toe be back in boston. I will begin with a reading from the text. I will actually start from the epilogue which is sort of a strange thing to read from at a book launch. Im very conscious of the fact that we are now at the moment where we are recognizing and remembering the anniversary of innovation of ukraine. Most of itut sticking before the draft ahi few days before the invasion started. When i was doing the writing are really thought about the things i was writing about as things that happen in the past. Things that were settled and fascinating to me in part because they just needed their distance. The events of the past year was showing that that is not the way to think about it. The acknowledgment off that moment i want to read this portion which has to do with the state ofkn my cousin, natalia. I dont think there is much you need to know to feel anchored in this section except for that we are First Cousins and we have the same grandmother. So, two months after the war began i s flew to italy to see y cousin natalia who had left ukraine with her to aunts adolescent daughters. On many accounts they were lucky they went to italy because at a family connection. The mother of natalias husbandt had moved to the country move to a nice hellion man. As soon as the war broke out the inlaws urged her to bring the girls the city in western ukraine where they lived in come live with them in a town outside bologna. A. A board one of the rails, they were at the station to greet me. There was no greater marker than the passage of time who at 14 was a foot taller than when id last seen her a few years earlier. The town we were staying in had typical italian farm. Lush flowers tumbling fromad hanging baskets. As we walk from the train station it was ukraine that loomed. I knew theirin departure but had not botheredir them for details. As we settled into the apartment on a Central Street she told me the full story. Like most ukrainians, they had considered a russian invasion unthinkable. When it happened, working a trucking gig, a man and his job rushed back to his family. He urged natalia to leave ukraine with the girls. That that point martial law had been imposed in the man had to start leaving the country. She was a patriot and had no desire to abandon her homeland in a time of need. She did not want to be separated because he was over 18 was also required to remain in ukraine. Natalias mother, my aunt had turned 80 the previous mother and like many old people refused to leave. She knew the environment was unpredictable and even in western ukraine possibly dangerous. It was not a good place for kids the first weekend after the invasion natalia agreed to check out the situation at the train station. The travel hub closest to their home. By then it had been widely reported that the station was overrun by refugees. She suspected they would not be able to board a train would just come back. So she and the girls packed small backpacks with food in their documents knowing that peapod been standing in closely packed quarters for hours to board trains. When natalia andnd the girls arrived at the station it was full of people trying to flee. They got in a Side Entrance that allowed them to a pass the bulkf the crowds. They ran towards a group of men who were knocking on the door of a train about to depart. Turned away and then the family enremained on the platform. The door opened and natalia and the girls were pulled aboard. Within moments of them stepping on the train, the door closed behind them in the wheel started to turn. They had made it. They barely had a chance to say goodbye. The train was moving, but going where . This was a question she focused on. None of the people around them had an idea. All of them knew was that the train was c going west. Eventually she found a conductor where areon we going she asked m the conductor answered unhelpfully, he didnt seem to know any more than the others. In comparison to many others, natalia andin the girl traveled. Only six people in their car sat for. Mally when they cross a border into poland, volunteers came aboard the train and offered them medication, food, water ent. Twenty hours after they left they got off the train somewhere in southeastern poland. Natalia hurried the girls to a waiting taxi. On her phone natalia found a flight leaving in a few hours. When she tried to buy the tickets a transaction would not go through perhaps because of Cyber Attacks on ukrainian banks when she told me this part of the story, i thought of our grandmothers moments of panic when she had to make sense of new yorks multiple airports the moment she arrived with my mom from the soviet union. Fiftysix years later here with her granddaughter almost momentarily 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. A ukrainian that happened to live near told him what was going on. A friend offered to buy the ticket. She sent photos of the documents in the transaction went through. By 8 00 p. M. , hours after they left, they arrived at the home outside and started a chapter of their lives. In peaceful italy, natalia and the girls were in the habit of counting their blessings. Unlike so manyth ukrainian refugees, that a place where they could stay indefinitely in an area familiar to them. They have the means to cover their modest expenses. The girls had plenty of experience with distance education after the covid pandemic. They resumed all my lessons at their school. They even have their most needed belongings. Busloads had started transporting luggage from ukraine to italy. They had sent them suitcases packed with items they were not able to bring with them when they left. It wasr. A delight to be with tm i was grateful after so much time apart. We couldnt joy each day together. We went to Different Grocery Stores to pick out provisions for dinner. I was beaten several times and chest. The evenings they watched songs in i ukrainian. Sadness hung in the air. One day walking me through some recent photos on her phone. It showed roman on his motorcycle, the girls doing yoga stretches on a beach. The family gathered for olga as 13th birthday. Natalia played a video unwrapping her mainic present, a guitar. I carry the voices of my loved ones in the background. Ellen coley. Because covid had been so long since id seen them. I knew we would meet again. It seemed impossible that our future gatherings would ever be so carefree. Its nice the phone reminds me of these moments. A moment later she also added, but hard. Before it gone to italy id gone back toin cleveland and picked p a lock of my grandmothers. Simple, but pretty. Plated and rose gold. My grandmother andwi purchase it in the soviet union. Trying to spend down her spare rubles before shemo flew with my mom and olga out to the united states. She had worn it all the time and i thought natalia may like to have it. I gave it to her one afternoon after we finished lunch. Is thiss our grandmother she askedd. I nodded. She immediately started to cry. I went over and put my arms around her. I said you can have a part of her with you now, i said. Some of her strength. I dont know how she did it. I looked across the Kitchen Table whose facesch had grown stronger. For a moment i mentioned being joined byde my grandmother in ts little italian kitchen. What would she have made us, i wonder. The hardship destruction and violence which you have endured. The answer came to me immediately. It was simple. Live. [applause] thank you. Thank you for being here. A weekai that is so important to any of us who have been paying attention. Thank you, also, that passage is really reflective of how the book brings the past and present in a really important conversation. My questions are oriented towards our pastt and present. First, lets start, for people that have not read the book or dont know that much about ukraine, can you describe a little bit about the drawl of ukraine. Its funny read that particular passage. A small town in western ukraine. Famous for this really disgusting. One of my Favorite Places in ukraine. I have been there i think five times. That question, i prepared the question without sort of thinking about that. That sort of made me smile when you are reading that passage. Four people thatbi dont have family some of the things that got me to ukraine are different than what set me back. I was very close to my grandmother who was kind of like a third parent in some respects to me and my younger brother growing up. Sort of observed all the traditional ukrainian holidays. We went to church all the time. Different ukrainian customs. It was really part of the fabric of my life growing up. Also, my grandmother was a curious presence to me. She was very kind of understandable in a way in a sense she was very responsible, very reliable, very loving. All the ways you could expect of a grandmother. She also had a sense of tragedy. There was something about her that was clearly she had had a really difficult earlyly life ad that came out through things like her starting to cry when she talked about her growing up in ukraine or russia or she was always sort of so attentive to how much things cost. Even now when im at the grocery store, oh, groceries, strawberries, 275 now. She was always cooking with Copious Amounts of food. An american growing up in the middle class. There was also this mystery wrapped up into who she was. Another thing that was interesting was that we had a very close family and ukraine. My mom, one of her sisters, natalia, her mother, had been left behind in ukraine. My grandfather was still there. There was a sense, too, a closeness, that could not really be explained very easily. Sometimes my mom would often, my grandmother would send packages over and my mom would go collect our clothing every so often. Things we were not wearing anymore that we had outgrown and we would send them to ukraine. A year or so later well be at my grandmothers house and we would be trying to do something and i would come across of a photograph of my second conditt second cousin where my clothing and they look like me. Look sort of like me, but not. It was a really rich set of questions, i think. Going to ukraine in the first place when i was in college. When i went there, i quickly realized just how fascinating of a place it was. 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 soviet union have such Big Questions facing themselves. Ukraine is the home of so many conflicts around language, around history, geopolitics and those questions and those conflicts are very high stake. People are really engaged in trying to represent their positions and, so, for me, as an american, it was so interesting to be able to go there and to start to learn based on the unfolding in ukraine. The other thing that i would say is ukraine has such a deep, rich culture and history. The thing you mentioned about the trip, there is just so much there. It is a big country with its own current ocular, its own history, its own culture. You know, once you start paying attention, there is so much i can be unfolded. That is why you should care about ukraine. Excellent. It leads into my next question. How you found theit story. This is a story not only about megans family, but also finding out more about the family that is not just in family war and placing it in ukrainian history. How did you come to put the pieces together the Family History and, especially, talkig about a long period of time working in ukraine and you talk in the book about the experience of the archive itself, i think that is really interesting to hear more about. What are the things that made you want to keep digging for details . Especially when you started to find out there may be details you will not like about your family. Were there any specific questions that ultimately you never found answers to . Okay. Remind me if i dont answer one of the questions. So, the abatis for this book, you know,w, i inserted going to ukraine when i was in college. I was really interested. I did not start this project specifically until my grandmother died 10 years ago. I interviewed with her. I wanted to document her story and really preserve it. That sort of quickly ballooned into a very ambitious project which ended consulting across multiple countries and doing a lot of secondary source reading which wasoo really super, super important in this book. It contains some of the scholarship that i used two 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 im calling out those people. I absolutely would not have been do this without some of that work. Doing interviews with people, people that it known my grandmother when she was younger people that knew the general environment. The archive was incredibly rich. I think, the archives and ukraine were particularly simportant and they tell an interesting story. I started at a t fortuitous fortuitous t time. It was stuff contained in a case file held by the secret police what is known as the kgb in the united states. It goes by a couple of other names now and in the past. But, until about the mid 2010, it was really difficult to get access to those archives. Particularly if youre just an interested member of the public. You could do it, but it is tough but, after the revolution in 2014 there became a vested interest in trying to make those archives as accessible as possible. It basically became like us in 2015, send an email. You have anything on those sources. Just getting that information. Applying in a very reasonable amount of time. Usually like two weeks and then they let you know what they found. Within a month they would send your file. I think its one or two months. Really predictable. Always super attentive. Clear. And much better, i would say, there my experience working with American Archives. No idea where it went, never heard back. I did get some great stuff from American Archives as well. I ended up getting some secret Police Archives all my family which was super, super interesting. Interrogations of people. Trial documents. Biographical statements. It is really interesting what those files contain. Yet the take it with a grain of salt. But, it is also a remarkable record of that time and what people were experiencing and so i found all of that to be very interesting. Also, sometimes very difficult, to your question. I did find a lot of, you know, world warkn ii and ukraine was extremely, extremely difficult, devastating. Probably the most devastated countries in world warar ii. You know, the reason that my grandmother was firston occupied by the soviet union the nazi germany and then the soviet union again. Active Ukrainian National movement. It was really, really bloodied and no one was spared. And, so, i was doing this archival work. Across thehe foundation that showed members of my family were interested in atrocities one could say. Both at a political level but also at a personal level, to be honest. And that is like a little bit of a more sort of difficult thing to describe. We can talk a little bit more about that. Were there any other questions i did not answer . Lets jump to the question of inheritance. When you start to learn some of these details, like you mentioned, these crimes things that we would categorize as war crimes on behalf of the nationalist movement. Sort of a very nuanced discussion. Citing academic forces about these topics. I think this contextualizes them very well. The other part is the inheritance that you talk about throughout the book. Physical resemblance. Aneurysm spirit inherited names. How do t you sort of reckon that inheritance that you have, the thing that draws you to ukraine in the first place with finding out about some of these really painful details and at any point did you kind of question your connection to ukraine or relationship with your family . 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 grandfather was someone who was never spokens about. Thosebo were people that i leard more about this research from. I think is a good find out more i think it was important to me to be able to build a story that felt like new ones and rail and wasnt immense and some her broke story that was going to fill in this blank that didnt feel real to me as a person in the world whose views the complexity of Human Behavior although time. It feels like im a complex person capable. So there is a kind of, had a new theew ukrainian history in the region and i knew the likelihood of movements as extremely difficult and complex. People were going to be involved in things that looked in retrospect not that great and i knew then i was sort of prepared and not sense. So i think that there was a way in which finding those details it didnt shock me so much and it didnt make me feel really sad. One of the things that there is one of my grandmothers brothers was involved that the Ukrainian Police which is a thing to be involved in an part of what overstated the holocaust and the motionin although wasnt involvd directly with killing people in that capacity and i remember findingcu that in getting the document that demonstrated he had been in the place and feeling such sadness for him because my grandmother never talk about the place and its very possible she didnt even know that he was in the police and i could see that being the case of you would want to protect your family and he wouldnt tell them necessarily so i got the confirmation of that and it made me feel so sad for him all the promise that he had had earlyar in his life was consumed under the banner of this and. So i think, i think its important on that and to talk about it and its still an evolving movement in ukraine telling the stories. One ofhe the things to say about the history in ukraine is that it is a process that relatively new under the soviet union. People couldnt talk about things or they were so much that was taboo in the soviet state has a specific interpretation of history that was often totally false and people wouldnt talk about things for fear of keeping their families safe and not incriminating themselves in a way that they were even aware of so its really been in the past 30 years that people have started to feel an openness to and amid many other priorities i would say coming to terms with the fall of the soviet union and the financial collapse of happen in trying to figure out a political system that worked so there has been a gradual process of developing a new more nuanced ukraine and thats been strengthened in much more holocaust remembrance and discussion about what ukrainians experiences were like in an interest in documenting thoseso stories. I hope is this book as a contribution towards that end continuing to have that nuance honest discussion that is not so much about this but what real people experience. I think its related to what we just talked about but the archives. Yes ukraine has been independent for 30 years. Access to information about all the things that happened with ukraine in the soviet union has been not it accessible to people inai tow recently so the process of reckoning with its past is how important it is and how in my experience most ukrainians they understand that its a processs thats unfolding and they in their family have rollers so i think thats something that you put in let me quote the way that macon puts us at the end of the book. She writes if there is something troubling is something troubling us with an ukrainians history came to think that it was not in its chaptersto which can be foud in the history of any country but the failure to recognize and account for them to find a way to tell a story about its past that included them or how could a country know itself unless it knew all of the things that had been. It resonates everywhere it resonates in the u. S. With the role of and the u. S. And how the u. S. Is inherited racial license edition spaced on the pass on the Bigger Picture question how do you think we can all be more aware of the stories that are part of history and whether their storiess need to be told and reckon the past and use it to put forward a Better Future . It simply mean out exactly what you said. Its a universal process and itsme something that not just like ukraine needs to do this. Its an evolving process for us all and societal evolution shows us over time and my y grandchildren might read this book about me in 60 years and i cant believe she ate meat and i how could she do that . There is always a shifting sense of worry and responsibility for all of us is toes try to really listen and capture as much nuance as possible and talk about these things in a clear as possible and understanding away as possible in ukraine was on its way towards that prior to this war and i think this war honestly im curious what you think but i think complicated because there is so much emotion in ukraine right now and for very understandable reasons. Theres this process now where they are throwing anything away that has anything to do with russia getting every bit of russian literature they can find and im not saying that to be judgmental but its interesting and its understandable that thats happening and it makes it difficult to d go forward and thinking about history are thinking about Current Events with an an amount of nuance and trying to understand the motivations on both sides. And i dont say that as a criticism. M. Rather something that people need to payoi attention to going forward. But i also think the war will make people even more interested in understanding their families passed. We have been digitizing like mad since the war started and unfortunately there were a number of records that were lost in the war which is really that happened s but theres going toe a lot more stuff available on line and accessible to people and hopefully people will be able to go back and look more carefully at those stories of their families and think about them critically. I like your optimism. Ukrainians are really thinking now about what does the future look like a and how they are telling p stories as part of th. Before we go to audience questions i cant help myself i had to ask a question about the title which is a reference to the name of ukraines National Anthem so he could tell us what resonated with you about that particular phrase in the title of the book. I chose the title before the book started and i didnt think the literal meaning was that meaningful to me to unfortunately now it is. My thinking had ended resident mates on a certain level it resonates on a certain level. It also speaks to more personally how in my family and as soon as my familyio left ukraine came to the united states. Ukraine didnt die for our family and particularly for me it didnt end there was a way in which it speaks to this woman on a journey and the woman could be me or could be my grandmother but the idea being that its important to, where people to move forward. Theres another way in which is important which is i wanted to capture how ukraine didnt really die for my grandmother either and there were ways that were good and bad. There was a way in which it was prompted by that but also she was so connected to ukraine so its a gesture towards that. Much. Nk you so we will take audience questions. We have blue light coming on so if you please let the mic get to you. Rachmaninoff, they were born in ukraine but they and they want went to moscow but but this another Cultural Exchange between ukraine and russia y and yet like in lithuania they the rations and welcomed the as a way of getting rid of the rations and the rations came back but is so complicated. How did you see that pride of russian culture and partly ukrainian culture how did that work itself out in your mind and in ukraines mines . Rachmaninoff is considered a ukrainian hero as a composer. Theres definitely defining the russian a cultural figures gesturing towards where they were born and identifies ukrainians and identify is making it clear in various cases that they identify with ukrainiansin but do your point i think its pretty complicated and error people that grew up in ukraine their whole life in ukraine. Identifiedll with russia. I think thats going to be a debate that will continue, i think its really cool that its starting and people are asking these questions and trying to get really specific and not just assume that oh well russia is the superior culture that least globally thinking and you think of somebody thing from russias primarily where people traditionally thought of that person as being from and now they are like lets stop and think about this and try to parse out what that persons identity was. I dont have a clear answer. I wouldnt say at any point that they should be identified as ukrainians. What do you think . This question reminds me of a conversation i had with a really good friend of mine in august of 2021 so as before the war started. He wasng born in kyiv and invend the helicopter. When russia hosted the olympics in 2014 when they did that whole abcs of russian heritage sikorsky was on that list and i think i write about that. And we were joking about it because well sure hes russian because it was the russian empire but the technology was invented in the u. S. So russia is over assessing their claim somehow helicopters russian even though he left the russian empire because of repercussions he faced in the joke was he was born in ukraine anyway. My friend didnt think of this person as ukrainians because he had never been an outspoken i am a ukrainian person in the way that other cultural figures like gopal had. He had a relationship with this you training ukrainian identity so the answer to your question is how those conversations unfold because this is the time thatop people e starting to think about what those identities mean and what they meant in the past and how being ukrainian and russian empire meant something completely different than it does today. Thank you. Thank you. I havent read the book yet but i saw boston globe article and i read to my russian born wife as we were driving down the road today. When its serving in kazakhstan in the peace corps i was struck by the nature of the Refugee Status of that entire company. Many people were moved there after things happen to them. And growing up in this area were some of us havent asked us to think of facing history ourselves in the holocaust and as a nonjewish person with the german name i wondered what was it like to be in a place as one of the oppressor people and how would you let it happen and i was hoping to read your book and read about the stories of why and how and what happened but i wonderedia i now pay attentionso what the rations in rations are saying and many are saying things like imagine the people in germany say things about ukraine and the ukraines and its shocking. People are loosely affiliated but i wonder if your book without any significant for rations and on the other side of the information wars on this. Its a strange thing to be sitting in a bookstore where this war of civilization going on in europe. Thank you. I just want to underscore that obviously whats happening in ukraine proper right now is so alarming and require so much attention and support and certainly its something happening in russia to which is just devastating. It has been happening for a long time too. Not something that was just manufactured over the last year. People are perceptive to the propaganda and its important to notear that people are not going to let go of these ideas easily either so even if is deposed there will be of the population in russia that thinks theres an alarming interpretation of history and i dont know how to get through to those people. And i dont know what to say about that unfortunately. Thank you for the question. Hello. Yes i n think the book you are riding in the book you have written is very interesting in the story behind it and your family is one that i would say is well honorable kind of thing to study what your family did throughout history in such to my question you say it was written during the ukrainian war. I was wondering what other parts of the book potentially were influenced later on by the war after he revised it and edited it. I think i mentioned that i finished the book a few days before thean war started. I did wrestle with that to some extent and i wasnt, i didnt end up going to the epilogue shows that i ended up going to europe after the war started and spend time with my family and in wasnt sure if that would feel important and ended up feeling important so i did include it but they didnt end up changing very much apart from thatat actually. I did end up riding a prologue whichug lets you think about it through the lens of what is happening now but what i found was so much of what my family experienced actually has a lot of parallels with whats happeningzi now in a lot of this like siberia migration Refugee Status Sexual Violence and all these things are things that were part of my family story in the 20th century and the point is not so much drawing a direct connection so much as be able to president to the reader an account that allows you to see that actually this is not just something that has happened in the past year or even the past nine yearsuk for one year. Its something that thats happened for a long time this region. I think thats what this book helps people understand the biggerbi context in the bigger history. Over time there are these patterns that we need to be attentive to. Do you think the same story could be written in lithuania today where do you think its different . Lift away the way mia has a lot of the same situation but not in active vision as russia right now. Lithuania introductory is a big difference in ukraine. If youre talking about what they are facing down those historicalou patterns lithuania and who knows us more time passes and more people more time passes and history unfolds and we can see age bigger pattern around places just beyond ukraine. Because lithuania with a book and a great so bradley into europe and because it does have such a strong tradition of existing outside of russia were ukraine was more or parts of ukraine that were under russian dominance. Thats my quick take. [inaudible] certainly in the 20th century there was a vulnerability of ukraine now though is different and i dont know what else to say. Russia thinks that ukraine is part ofof russia. Full stop and thats what motivatedd the war so thats particular i think. I wish her family supported are engaged with you in his this bookwriting process and the publication of the . Myme family was inched a menl and helping me do this book and thats why it was a fixer for me. It got me out to the people of village to talk to and it was so helpful and she didnt need to be so she really did to get onto help me. All of my family has been really supportive and generally it was important to me and they were a book to help me do it and get out in the world and they were pleased with that. Some of the revolutions in the book are uncomfortable certainly for people in my family and i think everyone has a slightly different set of reactions to that like this is sort of a time. People have other issues going on right now so its sort of time to be thinking about these sorts of things whether its questions around okay can i travel outside the vicinity and not put myself in extreme danger and is that a question . I dont know. So i think now i think itll be interesting to see how it unfolds when theres more engagement with the book but so far its generally extremely supportive and putting it together and in terms of it being published. How sure family doing now . Are they okay . So a number of family members have left the country and they have since come back which is a common trajectory. A lot of people have settled in to a new normal so they have gotten used to the power outages. Mymy cousin has all turned if electricity system set up in her house so when the power goes out there a Battery Powered lights everywhere and he just hit it and thats fine. They have wifi on the generator so people that are able to go on with some semblance of normal and they are places that are not being directly attacked. Theres a big psychological burden on everybody. Everyone knows someone who has died in everyone knows someone who has lost their home. Society is extremely disrupted and theres a lot of resilience in a lot of commitment to kind of living life as fully as possible. Ukrainians ii must say have a t of lived experience of being a part of a state so people are pretty good at working around things like 20li years ago reporter sample water was only available six hours a day. People used to have a big garbage bins of water in their houses so people kind of remember how to deal t with shortages that two americans seemed really hard to contend with. So theres a resilience and inability to move forward but i think theres also so much suffering. I dont thank you can talk about one without the other. You see a lot of stories about how ukrainians are so defying defined in goingli out and partying in like the rave. Yes and thats true. Its also sidebyside with messages about serving on the frontline for fighting with people so its a difficult reality i think. We have time for one more question. Im curious about the archives he said he had access to. You said thursday process of it becoming digital and is that somethingic thats possible and are things not being directed because of the war and my question to you is given their a lotim of similar trends happenig oriv their efforts to document d archive whats going on now and for a broader audience for posterity sake . It their summoning entities that are documenting archives and journalists are committed c to that. Emily you would probably know better than i do. In terms of accessing the material on line havent gotten into the system in and googled myself and ime dont remember wt its called but they are trying to create a onestop shop portal where you canta go in and basically put in anybodys name and you should essentially at least get as much information as possible about whatever they might have on that person and you can go to a Facebook Group i think. Maybe its the director of thean state archives talking about how much stuff they have digitized recently and its incredible what theyve been able toe do. I dont have a timeline for them being able to finish that portal but it does seem like they are getting a lot of support and money going in and obviously people are really interested in it. C i will add when the war first started we were contacted by a number of archival museums asking if we could help them find a space for their material because it would be someone with a laptop uploading everything that they had because they figured if its somewhere in the cloud and are actual server gets hit it will still be preserved and the russian attacks did include things like culturalal heritage sites. What they need with space. They needed somebody to have their materials uploaded so thats continued for the past year and lots of museums around ukraine have put a lot of effort into documenting what they have. You can do a lotai more virtual work on ukraine. Its a nice way to support them. People are definitely taking advantage of the increased capacity and increased openness that started with an interest in ukraine and their work started to really push the openness of local heritage and history so you dont have do have family members in the archives anymore to necessarily be able to access them and is a nice way to preserve that discussion. If you will join me in thanking meghan once more for her wonderful book. [applause]