The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution and Invasion by Marci Shore

2022/08/29

This is the first time I have experienced such an eerie feeling while translating. <...As a veteran war correspondent, he counts his days at Donetsk Airport as one of the most extraordinary experiences of his life. "This is a strange war," he said. "Because there is no reason for this war. The reasons given are completely fictitious, and everything is built on lies broadcast by Russian television. There is no reason for people to kill each other. It's like a theater of the absurd."> (p. 209). What is described here is a story from 2014. (For more on the state of Russian television, see my translation of Peter Pomerantsev's Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible).

Part 1 is "The Maidan Revolution." The European orientation of the Ukrainian people led to the Maidan Revolution, which forced President Yanukovych into exile in Russia. However, this was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea (it could be said that Ukraine as a "nation-state" was established at this point), and conflict began in Donbas due to blatant Russian intervention.

Part 2 is "War East of Kyiv," which deals with the Donbas conflict. Throughout the book, suggestive insights from the author Marci Shore (wife of Timothy Snyder) as a historian are interspersed between oral histories.

Although Putin's Russian invasion was expected based on my translation of Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom (2020) and other works, I was stunned by the "John Wayne-style" invasion that occurred while I was translating this book. The ongoing war situation in Ukraine and the content of the translation overlapped in my mind.

<"...I wonder what Putin is thinking?" It was as if everyone tacitly accepted that the fate of Europe was once again in the hands of one man.> (p. 130). This, too, is a story from 2014. It may not be difficult now to liken Putin to Hitler, or to view the Munich Agreement and Minsk II as examples of failed appeasement policies.

I should also add that the author does not take a biased view, as she introduces the pro-Putin discourse of her close Russian friend Polina over several pages.

The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution and Invasion

By Marci Shore, Translated by Toshiho Ikeda, Commentary by Yoshihiko Okabe

Keio University Press

288 pages, 2,750 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations, titles, etc., are as of the time of publication.