Mykola Riabchuk
is a vice president of Ukrainian PEN Center and author of many books including Die reale und die imaginierte Ukraine [The real and the imagined Ukraine], Suhrkamp 2006.
Eurozine Articles
Raiders' state
Even Ukrainian cultural journals have become the target of "raiders" -- shady groups working on behalf of powerful interests who use bogus property claims to close down businesses. The biggest raider of all is the Yanukovych government itself, says Mykola Riabchuk. [more]
Tymoshenko: Wake-up call for the EU
The EU shouldn't be surprised by the Tymoshenko verdict: its support of anything nominally reformist has been perceived as acceptance of a range of repressions. Tough measures are now needed to prevent another authoritarian state forming on the EU's borders. [more]
Metaphors of betrayal
Whatever one thinks about the "centuries-old affinity" between Ukraine and Russia, any western policy towards Ukraine that downplays the issue of values is fundamentally flawed, writes Mykola Riabchuk. [more]
What's left of Orange Ukraine?
After Viktor Yanukovych's election victory, Ukraine is supposedly back where it belongs: in the Russian sphere of influence. The reality, however, is more complicated, writes Mykola Riabchuk. For the Ukrainian leadership, it will be more a case of "muddling through" -- for the time being. [more]
Another quarrel in the post-Soviet komunalka
The Russian-Ukrainian agreement over gas supplies will not last, writes Mykola Riabchuk. It runs against the economic interests of the Russian elite, whose pressure Ukraine lacks the capacity to withstand. The EU, meanwhile, is reluctant to play the role of strong arbiter. [more]
How I became a Czech and a Slovak
Mykola Riabchuk recalls how the politics of the Prague Spring filtered through to Ukraine until the crackdown on "bourgeois nationalism" five years later; and how, during perestroika, the roles were reversed and he brought banned literature to friends in Czechoslovakia. [more]
Pluralism by default
Viktor Yushchenko's election victory in September 2007 opened up an opportunity for improvement of Ukraine's democratic institutions, writes Mykola Riabchuk. The current crisis, a symptom of "pluralism by default", represents a setback for those hopes. [more]
Bad peace vs. good war
Ukrainian democracy might be chaotic and immature -- but at least it's democracy. Nevertheless, there's still a lot to do before the country achieves anything like stability. [more]
Farewell to the cargo cult
The current stand-off in the Ukraine is a result of "incomplete revolution". The failure to establish democratic structures has allowed the mechanisms of authoritarianism back into Ukrainian politics. [more]
Is the West serious about the "last European dictatorship"?
Western civil society should stop tolerating cynical realpolitik towards Belarus and put pressure on their governments to blacklist offending officials. [more]
Ukraine at the crossroads
Can a state based on blackmail be reformed?
What will it take to really change the Ukrainian political system? [more]
Ukraine: the not-so-unexpected nation
Mykola Riabchuk on the history of Ukrainian independence and the ideological background of Victor Yushchenko's "Orange Revolution". [more]
Ukraine: One State, Two Countries?
Does the Ukrainian political elite use the country's deep sense of political ambivalence to stay in power? [more]
Ukrainian Media: Still "not so free"
In his analysis of the Ukrainian media landscape, Mykola Riabchuk maintains that a situation when people have plenty of rights on paper but cannot employ them in reality has largely persisted in the post-Soviet space. [more]


















