S4E6 Stas, Marichka, Val, and Maksym come together for the last episode of the season to reflect on three years of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this episode, we think back on who we were on February 24, 2022, and how profoundly we have changed since then. We discuss meaningful resistance and solidarity, the importance of personal stories, and our determination to support Ukraine for the long haul to victory and freedom. DISCLAIMER: This is a public release. Our Patreon family g...
Nov 23, 2024•52 min•Season 4Ep. 6
S4E5 “Maidan is a place of freedom.” Val and Marichka met in Kyiv to record a live episode from Maidan Square, where the Revolution of Dignity happened 10 years before. Listen to us walk around familiar streets and remember how it all started and what we were doing and feeling at the time. Through their eyes and memories, we go back to the events that shaped a new generation of Ukrainian freedom fighters. DISCLAIMER: This is a public release. Our Patreon family gets the newest episodes several w...
Nov 16, 2024•36 min•Season 4Ep. 5
S4E4 “There is no free Ukraine without free Qırım.” When Russia invaded and annexed Crimea (or Qırım, an indigenous name) in 2014, the lives of all Ukrainians changed in irrevocable ways, but none more so than Crimean Tatars. Our season would be incomplete without an episode on Qırım, and the story of Crimea can only be told by those it truly belongs to. That’s why we invited Lina, a Crimean Tatar woman and activist, to talk to her about her home, her identity and have her share her memories wit...
Nov 09, 2024•46 min•Season 4Ep. 4
S4E3 Before 2004, Ukraine pulsed with a vibrant cultural awakening. Following decades of Soviet suppression, Ukrainian language, music, art, and identity blossomed in a hard-won space. But this renaissance wasn't without its challenges. In this episode, we explore the diverse memories of Ukrainians navigating this crucial period: Marichka recalls the Orange Revolution through the eyes of a child, witnessing her mother's passionate activism and the birth of a national spirit. Val paints a broader...
Jan 24, 2024•37 min•Season 4Ep. 4
S4E2 On August 24th, 1991, Ukraine celebrated a moment etched in history: its independence from the Soviet Union. It was a culmination of centuries of struggle for freedom, a renewal of a spirit that had been suppressed for too long. This episode of Ukrainian Spaces delves into the complex story of Ukraine's regained independence. We hear personal reflections from the hosts, exploring how their families and communities experienced this pivotal moment. Through their stories, we discover the chall...
Jan 24, 2024•40 min•Season 4Ep. 3
S4E1 For many Ukrainians born after 1986, Chornobyl wasn't just a history lesson. It was a silent shadow cast over their lives. This episode delves into the personal stories of three Ukrainians grappling with the legacy of the world's worst nuclear disaster. From childhood memories of dosimeters and secret evacuations to the lingering distrust of authority and the ongoing environmental impact, we explore how Chornobyl continues to shape Ukraine's identity. DISCLAIMER: This is a public release. O...
Jan 24, 2024•41 min•Season 4Ep. 2
S4E0 What made four total strangers connect in those first few paralysing months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine ? This season, Ukrainian Spaces embarks on a personal odyssey through defining moments in Ukrainian history with Val, Maksym, Stas and Marichka. From the haunting aftermath of Chernobyl to the spirit of resistance ignited by the Maidan Revolution, we explore how the past shapes the present and what unites us as Ukrainians in the face of unimaginable challenges. DISCLAIMER: This ...
Jan 04, 2024•18 min•Season 4Ep. 1
podcast premiere episode: a jewish-ukrainian president and a korean-ukrainian governor emerge as key leaders in the ukrainian liberation war. perfect timing to decolonize your views about what it means to be a ukrainian. spoiler: it has nothing to do with ethnicity, race, or language. our featured ukrainian is oleksandr shyn , a civil society diplomat and activist SUPPORT: #UkrainianSpaces is a 100% independent, volunteer and listener-supported initiative. If you like us, please become our Patre...
Dec 18, 2023•54 min•Season 1Ep. 1
From victim-blaming and thinking that Russia is the language of smarter people to advocating against arming Ukraine. In our third bonus episode, available exclusively to our Patreon family, the #UkrainianSpaces team is bringing you a cringe-fest full of embarrassing things we said and thought about Ukraine and Ukrainianness. Be patient with us. One can measure the supremacy of a colonial empire in the number of lands it conquered and pillaged. But the real triumph happens in the heads of the peo...
Nov 13, 2023•35 min
Misunderstood, ridiculed, or cast out. The relations between Ukrainians at home and the Ukrainian diaspora have often been rocky. It took another genocide and powerful soul-searching to finally bring them together - like never before. The 44-million family has finally merged into the 66-million one. A while ago, we started treating our Patreon family with exclusive #UkrainianSpaces bonus episodes during which our team (Valeriia, Maksym, Solomiya, and Tetyana) answers the questions from our Pat...
Sep 23, 2023•32 min
Ukrainians often mention that the ongoing genocide did not start in 2022 but rather has been a slow-burning event since the 2014 Maidan Revolution. Everything that has happened since then is about Russia punishing Ukraine for wanting to be free. If the world did understand the revolution and heard Ukrainians 9 years ago, then maybe we wouldn't be dealing with this catastrophe today. A while ago, we started treating our Patreon family with exclusive #UkrainianSpaces bonus episodes during which ou...
Sep 12, 2023•36 min
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e9 (season finale): The triumph of colonialism is not just about the size of the conquered lands or looted wealth. It is about the success of identity confusion among the colonized people. People who do not know who they are, do not speak their own language, who look down on their own culture and feel embarrassed about their own roots. Uk...
Jul 24, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 9
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e8: Whenever you are in a museum and see an artist being credited as Russian or mentioned as being born in Russia — there is a massive chance that they are not. Malevych, Repin, Ekster. Many Ukrainian artists are still mislabeled as 'Russian' in most foreign museums, galleries, and art spaces. That is thanks to centuries of Russian coloni...
Jul 06, 2023•53 min•Season 3Ep. 8
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e7: The Crimea region in southern Ukraine (or Qirim, as local indigenous people call it) has been a centerpiece for russian imperial propaganda for centuries. You steal a land, cleanse it from the entire indigenous population, replace locals with settler colonists, rename every settlement, every street, river, and mountain — and soon t...
Jun 19, 2023•46 min•Season 3Ep. 7
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e6: Celebrated by some but used by others as an excuse to deny Ukrainians solidarity or even justify their mass murder. The topic of Ukrainian nationalism is divisive but, above all — profoundly confusing and unclear. That's why we called for help from the person who made an internationally-celebrated career on being an expert on Ukraini...
May 30, 2023•53 min•Season 3Ep. 6
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e5: ' My mother tongue tastes like ashes. Things scorched by enemy fire, then soaked with rain, touched with rot, smelling of death. I felt the taste of my mother tongue most acutely while driving through Borodianka, Bucha, and Irpin two months after these Ukrainian towns in the Kyiv region were liberated by the Ukrainian army from the R...
May 08, 2023•44 min•Season 3Ep. 5
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets the episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e4: During the latest mass pro-democracy protests in Sakartvelo-Georgia, you could see Ukrainian flags and hear 'Slava Ukraïni' everywhere. Why does Ukraine mean so much for Kartvelians-Georgians? This small Eastern European nation doesn't capture as many global headlines as Ukraine. But tightly bonded with Ukraine through centuries of s...
Apr 25, 2023•44 min•Season 3Ep. 4
DISCLAIMER. This is a public version of the podcast. Our Patreon family gets these episodes much earlier, packaged with lots of bonus and backstage content. s3e3: 'There is no future for Ukrainian Jews if they want to go together with the Russian culture,' a Ukrainian Jewish activist Maria Gershova tells us. There's a massive identity evolution that most Ukrainians are going through amid this genocide. But also affects all other overlapping identities that we have. We meet Maria at a cruci...
Apr 09, 2023•48 min•Season 3Ep. 3
s3e2: thanks to our generous Patreon family, #UkrainianSpaces is back for season three. We felt big decolonization energy and tried something completely new - a live-audience show. This is part two of our podcast episode recorded in late February in Warsaw during our sold-out event featuring brilliant Ukrainians like: Mariam Naiem , a prominent Ukrainian artist and researcher working on mainstreaming global understanding of the colonial and racial aspects of Russian culture concerning Ukraine an...
Mar 27, 2023•25 min•Season 3Ep. 2
s3e1: Thanks to our generous Patreon family, #UkrainianSpaces is back for season three. For this one, we feel big decolonization energy and tried something completely new - a live-audience show. Recorded in late February in Warsaw, a sold-out event featured brilliant Ukrainians like: Mariam Naiem , a prominent Ukrainian artist and researcher working on mainstreaming global understanding of the colonial and racial aspects of Russian culture concerning Ukraine and other peoples colonized by Russia...
Mar 13, 2023•43 min•Season 3Ep. 1
s2e23: It has been the worst year for every Ukrainian. In a way, it also has been the best one. Those Ukrainians who survived it are transformed forever. Despite the trauma, pain, and heartbreak, they keep dreaming, creating, and daring. Millions of Ukrainian stories can inspire anyone to live in a better world and to be a better person. But for the season two finale, we decided to keep it within the close family, featuring 9 Ukrainians and how they withstood the darkest, coldest winter of our l...
Feb 18, 2023•54 min•Season 2Ep. 23
s2e22: Russian-backed conspiracies about Ukraine and Ukrainians might appear bizarre, entertaining, or even funny. But every piece of anti-Ukrainian propaganda shared abroad, even accidentally or as a hate share, has a specific price in Ukrainian lives. That's why Ukrainians take fact-checking so seriously, and it is universally regarded as important as defending our freedom with actual weapons in the trenches. Mark Kaplan , our featured Ukrainian for this episode, might have a reputation as a f...
Feb 09, 2023•51 min•Season 2Ep. 22
s2e21: This is not Russia's first attempt to eradicate Ukrainians. This is not the first time fascism is trying to wipe an entire nation from the face of the Earth, either. Nevertheless, there has never been so much global unity when it comes to helping Ukrainians as today. But does it mean we are finally learning our 'never again' lessons? Let's do a quick rundown of things foreigners historically always get wrong about Ukraine and whether they are still mainstream. Our featured Ukrainian is An...
Feb 04, 2023•53 min•Season 2Ep. 21
s2e20: When Ukrainians express discomfort by being pushed into a space with a Russian person without consent, some foreigners label it 'hatred' or 'russophobia.' When Ukrainians talk about Russian society's centuries-old patterns of serial abusive behavior towards their neighbors, we are dismissed as 'emotional' and 'hysterical.' Could it be just a lack of empathy or education? Lia Dostlieva , a Ukrainian artist, anthropologist, and our featured Ukrainian for this episode, wants you all to recog...
Jan 30, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 20
s2e19: Through centuries of colonial oppression, music remained a secret superpower for Ukrainians to keep their resistance up. The ongoing genocide is no different. Ukrainian music artists have been creating breathtaking art that keeps our spirits up and inspires us not to give up. For this one, we feature Zbaraski , one of our favorite Ukrainian musicians , to explain the deep anti-colonial roots of Ukrainian music and where Ukrainian artists find the inspiration and energy to keep creating th...
Jan 20, 2023•50 min•Season 2Ep. 19
s2e18: We took the theme of our second season, building bridges with Ukrainian allies worldwide, and thought why not go more ambitious? That's how Volya Hub was founded . A sister Ukrainian Spaces project, it unites journalists, storytellers and scholars across former Russian colonies to expand public awareness about the crimes of Russian colonialism — in languages of the communities that are affected by it. We invited our friends and partners to chat about why we teamed up for Volya Hub and how...
Jan 15, 2023•58 min•Season 2Ep. 18
s2e17: How does one go from a foreign journalist to a NAFO founding figure to a Ukrainian soldier putting your life on the line for Ukraine daily? For this one, we talk to James (his second name will remain secret due to security concerns) from Spaghetti Kozak Media . We discuss the price of freedom, colonialism, the NAFO phenomena, and Russian propaganda in the most honest, raw way - because facing death on the Ukrainian frontline puts all of it in a new, crystal-clear perspective. SUPPORT US: ...
Jan 09, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 17
s2e16: Despite what Russia claims, the roots of Ukrainian identity reach as far back as thousands of years. Despite what Russia is trying to do, a new generation of Ukrainian artists resists the cultural erasure and makes ancient Ukrainian culture reborn and reimagined again. For this one, a Ukrainian ethnographic researcher, style icon, and the founder of Nadiia , Nadiia Shapoval , explains how centuries of Ukrainian traditions are inspiring a new age of powerful cultural renaissance in wartime...
Jan 03, 2023•49 min•Season 2Ep. 16
s2e15: We talk so much about cultural appropriation by Westerners. But Russians have been doing the same thing to Ukrainians - and so many other neighboring cultures - for centuries, presenting stolen cultures as their own. We've had enough. Receipts of colonialism are ready to be shown, and anti-colonial tea is ready to be spilled. Our featured Ukrainian is Oleksandra Povoroznyk , a culture critic and insanely intelligent person. SUPPORT US: #UkrainianSpaces is a 100% independent, volunteer, an...
Dec 23, 2022•49 min•Season 2Ep. 15
s2e14: Before Russia started mass-slaughtering us, Ukrainians had global traction for exceptional work ethic, 'everything-is-possible' attitude, and breathtaking creativity. For the same reasons, Ukraine became one of the leading global hubs for high-end movie and video production in recent years. But what it has to do with our colonial past? Everything. For this one, we feature Kateryna Galytska , an executive producer behind the award-winning production house Radioaktive Film with accolades fr...
Dec 18, 2022•52 min•Season 2Ep. 14
