Rosie Hancock  0:06 
Hi, thanks for joining us for more Uncommon Sense from the Sociological Review Foundation. I'm Rosie Hancock in Sydney, Australia,

Alexis Hieu Truong  0:13 
And I'm Alexis Hieu Truong in Gatineau city, Ottawa, Canada.

Rosie Hancock  0:18 
Now we often start the show by saying that, by casting a critical sociological eye on everyday notions and understandings, it's our hope that Uncommon Sense can help us think about living together and confronting our shared crises. Today, we're going to be putting that claim to the test, because we're talking about Ukraine.

Alexis Hieu Truong  0:38 
Yeah, and with us today is Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist based at the Institute of East European Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. His opinion pieces, essays and interviews are collected in his book Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War.

Rosie Hancock  0:54 
Volodymyr's interested in things like protest, social movements, right and left politics, nationalism, civil society and today's theme: revolution. And crucially, his work – and this is a key point for us today – is about Ukraine, but not only about Ukraine, or for people who study it, because Ukraine, as he shows, is a site where global processes are playing out and its story is instructive, indeed, probably cautionary for all of us.

Alexis Hieu Truong  1:26 
Volodymyr, welcome.

Volodymyr Ishchenko  1:28 
Thank you for having me.

Alexis Hieu Truong  1:29 
So, Rosie mentioned that you work on revolution, so could you tell us a bit, like, what that entails? I guess I'm interested, because, like, revolution is such a huge word, right? It quickly conjures up a lot of powerful imagery.

Volodymyr Ishchenko  1:44 
I think, yeah, it is actually like a big concept that many people might contest, and it's a question, what revolutions mean today. And the word revolution, I think, in the most interesting meaning – also publicly interested, not just academically interested – it contains two things: that the radical and relatively fundamental changes in society, economy, politics, on the one hand, but on the other hand, these changes that are brought by the collective action from below, by the popular mobilisation. And these are two interrelated and very much important elements of this concept. We need fundamental change, but at the same time, this change should be brought by us, the mobilised people who are mobilised not just for one event, but also continue this mobilisation, this collective action from below in the long process of revolution.

Rosie Hancock  2:43 
I use social movement theory a lot in my work, and I really appreciate the way you just spoke about revolutions there, because, I know, obviously, you know, revolutions and social movements are kind of different things, per se, but I think there's some shared interests here. Like, you know, how people mobilise for change, why people mobilise for change, but also, you know, as you pointed out, sometimes, like why it might fail as well. And I think it's interesting, Ukraine has seen a lot of events that have been described as revolutions in recent decades. So, three from 1990 to 2014. And there's a timeline you can find which goes a little something like this: so in 1989 and 1990 there's a youth uprising against the USSR, and in 1991 Ukraine becomes independent. Then jump ahead to 2004 where there's the Orange Revolution, this is where protests against an election that is understood to be rigged and was meant to give power to a pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych led to victory for the pro-western Viktor Yushchenko. As a sidebar, Yanukovych does come back in 2010. And then in 2014 you have Euromaidan, and I'll quote the Open Society Foundation, the OSF, which describes these protests as "more than a demand for closer EU relations, they were a rejection of injustice as a way of life and of the post-Soviet politics of corruption and nepotism. Civil society activists and NGOs", it continues, "played an important role". So there's this huge violent crackdown from the government, which was eventually replaced by a government led by pro-western oligarch Petro Poroshenko. Okay, so that timeline, it's got omissions, definitely, it's something that we're going to flesh out and add to today, challenging some of the simplifications that I've probably just made and so on, not from a political standpoint, but from a sociological one. So how does your work complicate the narrative of Euromaidan in terms of its social makeup? Who got involved? You know, what interests were at play? Just curious about the social mix of the protesters.

Volodymyr Ishchenko  4:58 
Well, it's something that I have actually discussed not only in relation to Maidan, but the relation to the contemporary revolutions that often claim to be brought by very diverse crowds of people who gather at the streets and the squares of the cities, and this way they overthrow the government. So, the attention to this diversity of the makeup is pretty common, and that argument have been made in relation to Ukraine's Euromaidan, that this is a broad popular revolution where representatives of each group from Ukrainian society came together and made some political change. The problem is that, yes, very diverse people participate in this kind of revolutions, but they participate in different extent and have different impact and influence. And in case of Ukraine, indeed, the, there were some people, for example, from the south and eastern parts of the country but they were less numerous than the people who were coming from western and central regions. They were significantly less, that's one of the asymmetries re: the participation. The other asymmetries actually, what, what political agents, which social groups had more impact? One of the important groups which I studied quite a lot were the radical nationalists, and I've been showing that actually were the most active collective agent in Euromaidan protests, specifically in the violent part of those protests, but also in non-violent far right parties Svoboda, which means freedom in Ukraine, but which is actually an ethno-nationalist, quite radical, far right party. And they were not actually popular in electoral terms, but that's not exactly the only way how politics is made, especially in the countries like Ukraine, with much more contentious, much more volatile politics where the outcomes of the elections does not necessarily mean that the will of the people is going to be pursued, it has typically the opposite. And the way to influence politics, via mobilisation, also via violence, have been much more important than, let's say, in established democracies. So radical nationalists who became empowered, who became more integrated in the military police structures, who were capable to push forward their ideological agenda. Also the pro-western NGOs, very often funded by different western donors. The whole sphere of the civil society have been supported by western institutions which created certain resources, obviously, but also certain dependencies and also certain asymmetries, and not necessarily – even though they were claiming to be Ukrainian civil society – they were not necessarily representing the interest of the Ukrainian society, right, in the typical notion about what civil society is supposed to be, kind of like a public representation of some social groups. And the actual policies, actual ideologies of the NGO-ised civil society have been in many aspects, quite different from what the majority of the Ukrainian society would prefer, so in particular in the neoliberal reforms. And also another important group, some of the Ukrainian oligarchs that have been actually mentioned, Petro Poroshenko, he can be displayed as a western oligarch, but he's actually one of the manifestation of how extremely opportunistic these people may be. So he's entering into, into Ukrainian politics in the 1990s, started from, basically from the, what is commonly known as a pro-Russian camp. He was one of the founders of the party, which was actually overthrown in 2014. Plus, the final thing are the western powers, United States, European Union, who acquired a leverage in Ukrainian politics, also, in particular, thanks to the weakening of the Ukrainian state which became more dependent on the support of the West in the war which started in Donbas, in the hostilities with Russia, the West acquired very important leverage on the Ukrainian politics.

Alexis Hieu Truong  9:38 
So just by starting to look at the groups, the composition of the crowd, it allows a very deep reflection on some of the internal and also the dynamics that are external to the groups that are mobilising and, and as you've said, like the different factions involved, including Ukrainian nationalists and what you call NGO-ised civil society backed by the West. They also brought, like, different resources with them, so meaning that some were heard more and maybe represented more effectively than others. And so I'm wondering, like, was the outcome of Euromaidan revolutionary in the conventional common sense way people might understand from a term like revolution? Was it a radical type of transformation or not quite?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  10:28 
That's one of the biggest question about the contemporary revolutions, not just about Euromaidan, so what are those radical transformation that may come out of this revolutions? So apparently, not anything like we've seen after, let's say, classical social revolutions, the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917 or the Chinese revolution of 1949, where the basic structures of economy have been changed, where the classes have been changed. Some classes were actually almost eradicated from the economic structure, and they lost political influence, that's what happened, for example, after the Russian Revolution. And different, very different, political regimes emerge and much stronger, much bigger states emerge, which have much more expansive power. And they become also more efficient in terms of tax collection, in terms of the modernisation, in terms of the regulation of economy, economy in many cases start to, well, they experience decline, in particular because there was this kind of revolutionary, quite devastating civil wars. But then we've seen quite astonishing modernisation processes, which in particular happened in the Soviet Union. Now, the question is, is something like this happening now? No. But on the other hand, does it mean that there are no consequences at all? I also think that that would be a big simplification, although, yeah, there are scholars, for example, who say that these revolutions are simply overthrowing the governments, other scholars simply call this contemporary revolution as not revolutionary at all. Why we are even speaking about them as revolutions when, well, in Ukrainian case, there is a narrative that presents Euromaidan as a coup d'etat. Coup d'etat made by radical nationalist, by violence and also the support of the West. It points to some important parts of the reality, but I also think it's not entirely explaining what's happening, because if you look at them as simply a coup d'etat, what is the role of the people? The issue is that this popular mobilisation, this revolutionary form, some said that the contemporary revolutions actually share with the social revolutions that type of politics that emerged – as famous sociologist Sewell actually argued – that revolutionary form emerged in the French Revolutions in 1789, when the people mobilised the street and claimed their sovereign power against the king, and that that kind of revolutionary form is reproducing up until now, the people come to the streets and claim their sovereign power against the government, they don't seem to represent themselves. And it does have consequences for legitimation of those, some of the outcomes which may not actually represent the interests of those people, but who, which require legitimacy as outcomes of these revolutions, something that, well, small groups of radical nationalists push forward, claim legitimacy of the whole people. Some neoliberal reforms which benefit just very narrow part of the society, are pushed forward by the pro-western NGOs, and they claim to be the continuation of the Euromaidan. So, in fact, this combination of, let's say counter-hegemonic weakness – let's use this term – the weakness of the, of the popular organisation of the dominated classes, combined with the revolutionary form, produced a specific set of outcomes which do not bring revolutionary transformation in the sense of the classical social revolutions, but they do produce important, significant outcomes. And in case of Ukraine, this was, in particular, polarisation along ethnicised lines, and also asymmetrical amplification, in political sense, of the specific social groups and which acquire asymmetrical power to push forward their agendas and their interests.

Rosie Hancock  14:54 
Yeah, so I mean, you point out that the aftermath of Euromaidan was kind of hardly revolutionary, so there's been no wholesale transformation of the state or society, with the aspirations of those who took part also not mapping neatly onto what came afterwards. And you've brought up sort of some other examples to show that this isn't a process that's really specific to Ukraine, necessarily. I know you use this term "deficient revolutions". Is this what you're explaining to us here? Can you tell us your thinking around the term deficient revolutions?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  15:28 
Yeah, absolutely. This is the actual, the process that we try to catch with this concept. So the revolutions happened, the people overthrow the government, but then we do not see those rapid, fundamental social and political changes. Why? One answer, this was not a revolution at all. This was simply regime, regime breakdown. Some scholars claim coup d'etat. Some people invented the term coup-volution, right? So if it's not a revolution, we do not even expect those changes. But, well, does that revolutionary form matter not at all? It does matter, I think. Another answer is that maybe revolution simply evolved, so we have kind of like evolution of revolutions. We do not even need to expect the revolutionary changes out of the contemporary revolutions, right? And that actually take away some of the most interesting part of why people are interested in revolutions. It's not just popular mobilisation, but also the expectation that this mobilisation is bringing fundamental social and political change, and when it doesn't happen, one answer would be, well, we simply need to wait more. And some scholars also think about it as maybe these are liberal democratic revolutions, but eventually, simply by opening some space for civil society, they would produce some long term liberal democratic outcomes. This is what in sociology and social sciences, is typically criticised as teleological vision, so there is some goal and we expect and we construct the whole narrative oriented towards that goal, which may not actually necessarily happen. And when we do not see those outcomes, in case of Ukraine, we actually, as we've been spoken, we have revolutions since 1990, let's say, over three decades of revolutions, and the result is devastating war. So my answer is, what if these are deficient revolutions, not failed revolutions, not aborted, aborted revolutions, but revolutions that produce deficient outcomes? And we need to take accept this reality, these revolutions do have outcomes, this is in particular polarisation. All revolutions polarised the society, but social revolutions polarised them across the class lines, workers against capital. The contemporary revolutions tend to polarise the society across non-class lines. In case of Ukraine, these were ethnicised lines, lines across the regions, and also more and more connected to the question of Ukrainian versus Russian, Ukrainian language versus Russian language. And the revolutions didn't start as ethnic conflict, but the more the process evolves, the more of the ethnic dimensions we got there. Another outcome is this asymmetrical amplification. This what we've seen, studying, Ukraine's Euromaidan. We see not the construction of the stronger state, more equal society, but rather the continuation of the crisis which those revolutions were responding to in the first place.

Rosie Hancock  19:14 
I have this feeling of like, oh, I want to find who's at fault for the phenomenon of, like, this deficient revolution. But, you know, I know, like, fault's not a very sociological word, but it feels like the way that you're explaining this is this really interesting bridge across these two strands of the theory that I'm used to using, social movement theory, right? Which is, you know, you have the social movement theorists who take the sort of Marxist, historicist analysis, and they're interested in kind of the fault lines in society that give rise to mobilisation. And then you have the kind of organisational people who are looking at how groups are kind of mobilising amongst themselves and how, what they're doing. And I like how your explanation is sort of marrying these two. And am I right, I know you've mentioned this word previously, am I right that you talk about all of this in terms of hegemony? Which I'd describe as, you know, imperfectly, the dominance of a state usually over, like, the social, economic, political world. And you talk about, you've talked about this, a crisis of hegemony. Can you explain that? Like, what, what's the crisis people are facing here, not just in Ukraine, but beyond?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  20:29 
Yeah, that's, hegemony is probably even more contested term than the revolutions. And I based on one of the most known theorists of hegemony, Antonio Gramsci, and there is also no consensual interpretation of what Gramsci meant by hegemony. But what I am talking about, and that also follows the interpretation of one of the very interesting American sociologists, Dylan Riley – he is a professor at the University of Berkeley – that hegemony, in fact, describes the process of mutual political growth of antagonistic social classes. Let's say 19th century, the workers against the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie is becoming more conscious, more organised. At the same time, it also creates opportunities and creates the impulses for the workers to become also better organised. So the workers are starting to create the mutual help societies, unions, eventually parties, socialist parties, communist parties and, finally, in Russia they make a revolution which inspired Gramsci so much. The Soviet Union becomes kind of like a counter-hegemonic poll for the whole world, in at the same time the United States becomes a hegemonic pole for the, let's say, bourgeois world. And we see the process of the mutually amplified political growth of the social classes. The politics becomes more and more complicated, more organised, more articulated, more conscious, very, very developed ideologies developed, communism based on, well, Marxism was a huge social theory. The bourgeoisie is capable to claim that they do represent the universal class, the universal interests and this is the interest institutionalised in the, in the state. So hegemony is actually, fundamentally explains the stability of power of the ruling class despite the growing threat of a revolution, right? Then, what is crisis of hegemony? I would also describe it as a very broad process that started, let's say, end of sixties, 1970s, and it could also be thought about in the global framework. It's the basically, the opposite process of political fragmentation. The political parties have become fragmented, they start to quarrel with each other. The parties which organise the political structures of the major countries, they become less and less popular, they involve less and less people. The ideologies become shallow. The articulation of the class interests become not convincing at all. And more and more people experience what, what's, well, in simpler words, I described as the crisis of political representation. The ruling elite does not represent our interests. Whichever party we vote, it doesn't change anything. So this is kind of like shallowness of politics. There is a political struggle, the elections happen, there is some competition. So Labour, for example, competes with the Tories in the Great Britain. In Germany, for example, the political structure is more or less stable. So, still, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, although other parties are emerging, like the far right Alternative for Germany. And when we get into this crisis of politics, one of the manifestation is what is typically described as populism, the articulation of the peoples against the elites, the emergence of the so called anti-establishment, anti-systemic parties. But what, even when they come to power, for example, in Greece, in 2015 Syriza, the coalition of radical left, they typically not capable to push forward the, those expectations and aspirations that were put in them by their voters. And so this is hegemony crisis, and we may think about deficient revolutions as actually one of the fundamental process that escalates this crisis. People want their say, they cannot show the governments, but they cannot bring forward the change that would represent their interests.

Alexis Hieu Truong  25:26 
You mentioned these, these complex ideas, like so representation, interests, like elites and so on. And, as you said, Ukrainian politics have recently been spoken of in terms of so called ethnic and national identity, but you highlight, right, the importance of class and geography as key factors in Ukrainian politics. And I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on that. How do you approach these, these reflections?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  25:57 
So, why class? Actually, geography in terms of the regional cleavage in Ukraine, that's been actually quite typical topic, also in relation to Euromaidan. The question is, how exactly we understand that regional cleavage, which did manifested in the polarised elections, for example, in the 1990s, in the 2000s up until, let's say, 2019 when Zelensky supposedly united Ukraine. But that's also quite doubtful right now. So we do see very polarised maps. Western Ukraine votes for some partisan candidates. Eastern Ukraine votes for other candidates, candidates, parties. How do we understand it? Well, the region itself does not explain, right? So, is it some history? Is it some identity? Is it, what is it exactly? This cleavage also manifested in Euromaidan, as I mentioned. And one answer is that, basically connects it to ethno-linguistic conflict. So the Western Ukraine is more Ukrainian speaking, is more, let's say, pro-western in terms of geopolitical orientation, is more anti-communist in terms of the relation to the legacy of the Soviet Union. The Eastern Ukraine is the opposite. So the region becomes basically, kind of, like a proxy for something like ethnicised conflict, and the people, then the scholars, then measure the correlations of different variables that may point to some of the underlying quasi ethnic conflict. But it is also very much contested. And one of the problem is, if it's simply kind of like ethnic conflict, why so much asymmetry between them? Why is that Western part is so consistently winning on the streets, but at the same time the Eastern part is winning elections, at least again until 2014? That's a puzzle. Why, why the Eastern part is much less mobilised. And very typically, some sociologists, political scientists, basically make this postcolonial argument that is, this is national building, right? What is used to be, think, as a Eastern part of the regional cleavage is simply legacy of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union, and it doesn't have any future. And the Western Ukraine is basically becomes, kind of like an embryo for Ukraine properly. This is the, well, Ukraine, growing, expanding. This is a popular narrative, but also teleological. It's a very typical teological nation building story, which we also know is very much problematic in many other parts of the world. And so my answer about class is a way to explain that asymmetry, that real asymmetry of the post-Soviet Ukrainian politics. What we may think about the regional cleavage, may be actually a national specific manifestation of the class conflict which started to be structured in the process of the Soviet Union collapse, when the former communist elite were starting to become political capitalists, capitalists whose major competitive advantage is their special privilege, connection to the state. And on the other side of this class conflict, is a professional middle class excluded from political capitalists but which finds alliance with the transnational capital typically represented by, by the western powers. And this asymmetrical class cleavage, because the professional middle class who is actually the most important social base for the civil society, for the organisation of the public sphere, is so much skewed to, let's say, western part of the politics. We see these asymmetrical development of the mobilisation and elections. Political capitalists can rely on the passive voters who are dependent on them in terms of the paternalistic organisation of production in the remaining big Soviet factories, which were important well until the devastating war in Ukraine, but they cannot mobilise them actively. Well, the civil society is so much skewed to the other part of the supposedly regional cleavage, and when we look at the class, we start to understand the asymmetries which have so much manifested in Euromaidan and in post-Euromaidan politics.

Rosie Hancock  31:05 
In the middle of a conflict – and indeed, I mean, like, maybe also in the process of nation building that you've been describing – narratives, which you've mentioned, seem to simplify. And, I mean, some might say they they have to, right? But what benefit is there, as a sociologist, in drawing attention to these very complex, messy realities that you've been describing today? I mean, like, I mean, I'd suggest it makes people, myself included, start to think about how we can talk about and define Ukraine as something more than simply not-Russia, yeah, and also as a site, again, as I think you've been drawing out here, where global processes are playing out, and where globally relevant lessons right there to be learned. Or, you know, something, is that, does that seem right to you?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  31:58  
That's a very important point, and I've been trying to make it. It's not complication, just for the sake of complication. We as social scientists, we, I think that's basically our task, to question this supposedly natural ethnicisation of conflict, that's supposedly natural hatred. And well, when we look at in Ukraine and when we look, for example at decolonisation agenda – which maybe some of the listeners or some of the scholars could also notice – that, well, Ukraine is supposedly undergoing the process of decolonisation and removing the remains of the Russian legacy. And why is it happening? Oh, it's because the war. No, it's not simply because of the war. In a way, it is related to the war, but not in a way in the sense of the cause, but in the sense of, let's say, the trigger, an opportunity. The war allows certain criticism to be completely de-legitimised, and it also opens opportunities for specific political agents, ideologies to acquire much bigger prominence. For example, well, renaming the streets, removing some monuments to Russian poets and writers, Ukrainianisation of the public sphere and also the private sphere, which is experienced by some significant group of Ukrainians as coercion coming from the state. Just as for example, what was, what was revealed in some of our interviews here – collecting in the last half of, couple of year – this is not necessarily coming from the push from below. It is experienced as a coercion from above. So the task of the social scientist is, is not simply a complication for the sake of complication, it connects immediately to the most relevant questions, to the question, what is actually should be done during the war and after the war? Is the unity of the people is simply imagined unity, or it has something real behind it, there is some real popular push from below? And another part of the question is the, that decolonisation understood as, basically as a nationalist identity politics, amplification of everything that is connected to Ukraine in a very specific understanding of Ukraine, Ukrainian language Ukraine, anti-communist Ukraine, anti-Soviet Ukraine, anti-Russian Ukraine, and forgetting all the other possible articulations of what Ukraine could be. Bilingual Ukraine, for example. Ukraine that embraces its Soviet legacy. This very specific understanding of decolonisation, just simply provincialise Ukraine, simply erases the most interesting parts of what Ukraine was and could be. Erases Ukraine from being a part of the global story. And well, objectively, Ukraine, as a part of the global story is the manifestation of the enormous crisis of the abyss, and when we are experiencing this crisis on the global scale, well, this is the country where we need to learn from.

Alice Bloch  35:47 
Hi. It's Alice here, producer of Uncommon Sense. Thanks for listening as we reflect on revolution with Volodymyr Ishchenko. Listening to this, I'm reminded of our show on security with Daria Krivonos from back in season one, where we talked about what it might actually mean to stand with Ukraine, as the hashtag goes. So after this, why not catch that in our archives? And remember, you can always catch our magazine over at thesociologicalreview.org. There, you'll find the late Michael Burawoy in conversation with Michaela Benson, reflecting on public sociology today and more. And finally, our usual request at this stage, but please don't tune out your ears. If you've been over to our site, you may have seen that the Sociological Review Foundation is a charity: we're about advancing public understanding of sociology, and the importance of that task doesn't exactly look set to go away. So, we want to ask if you can please consider making a contribution to help the Foundation keep bringing this podcast to you. You just need to head to donorbox.org/uncommon-sense, and you'll find that link also in our show notes. And over at that site, you can make a one off donation, just for the, the amount of a coffee, or set up more of a repeat thing. It will directly support the making of Uncommon Sense, and it's all gratefully received. Any feedback, we're at Uncommon Sense at thesociologicalreview.org. Thanks for listening.

Alexis Hieu Truong  36:50 
Okay, welcome back. Here's where we ask for something that's given you a bit of uncommon sense. And today, Volodymyr, we have two brothers, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, who wrote science fiction in the USSR.

Rosie Hancock  37:35 
Okay, so who are these guys? Like you read them as a child, yeah, in Russian, am I right?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  37:41 
Yeah, in Russian. Actually, they have some Ukrainian origins but they lived in the city of Leningrad, the city which is now called St Petersburg. And they were writing in the Russian language. They were Jewish. They are very famous in the post-Soviet countries, some of the most celebrated and some of the most famous sci-fi writers of the Soviet age, although during the Soviet Union they have, they had quite difficult history in their relations with the communist parties there, some of their novels were censored, some of the novels were not possible to publish. They were kind of like treated with suspicion and they acquired more fame in the late years of the Soviet Union, when became more liberalised and especially in the post-Soviet period. This was sci-fi, but raising the questions relevant for the Soviet Union and but also relevant universally. The questions of the progress, the question of the relation, well, advanced society to the society which is perceived to be less advanced. In terms of politics, actually, it's also very much connected to hegemony crisis that I'm writing about. Strugatsky started as very committed communists, and some of the earlier novels they wrote were optimistic, connected to more to the technical side of the of the progress, so space expansion and so on so forth. But in the 1960s they experienced very typical transformation, typical for the Soviet intelligentsia, who started to be very much disappointed with the Communist Party, who started to be alienated, who didn't feel themselves having any opportunities within the ossifying state which became more and more distant from the people who they claim to represent, and alienated to their private sphere writing these novels – as it was called – for the desk, expecting them, let's say, in ten or 20 years, it would be possible to publish them finally.

Alexis Hieu Truong  40:00 
Maybe as a as a kind of example of their relevance today, the epigraph for your book Towards the Abyss is from their work, The Snail on the Slope. Could you tell us about that and how they're instructive, like, right now for your, your thinking?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  40:18 
Oh that's actually a great novel. One of the central issue, narrative of this novel is kind of like centred around, is also one of the typical stories for their books, is the advancement, let's say, from above. So the advanced communist earth comes to some less advanced planet where some simple people on the basically, like, very primitive level of society live, and they produce some experience, experiments there, they produce some, some structures. And one of the, this communist earthlings appears in the, in the village of those, let's say, primitive people, and well, lives with them, and but at the same time, he's kind of like starting to re-evaluate what they've been doing on that planet, and started to be connected to, so whatever, however simple those people are, however, let's say, stable and moving nowhere their life is, but this is a place he's going to defend, defend against some external, irrational, very difficult to comprehend changes that happen on some of the background, and he sees them as a danger to the people to whom he becomes connected. But he chooses his side. And so the epigraph which I chose for the book is about progress, but what kind of progress? And what, what we exactly we call the progress? And now we are in this situation when the West is in a huge crisis, and when it's less and less plausible to claim that the western Europe, the United States, represent some socially progressive side of history right now, right? And so what are we, in which place we are now, in the, in Ukraine, in the larger Eastern European region, where our whole political narrative, at least one of the most dominant for the last 30 years since the Soviet Union collapse, was integration with the West for the sake of our social progress.

Rosie Hancock  42:43 
I mean, you know, on the, yeah, on the theme of progress and things. I mean, I just, I love how sociologists do tend to be interested in, in sci-fi. I've got a soft spot for it. I know Alexis definitely does as well, and we're going to put some of that work in our show notes today. But I mean, Volodymyr, we'd normally grab a pop culture tip from you as one of the last things, but we've already got that in your praise of the Strugatsky brothers. So instead, we wanted to ask you, before you go, you've got a piece Ukrainian voices, where you call out the Western gaze on Ukraine, but also those who seek out and use Ukrainian voices in a very narrow way, claiming to amplify them and so on. And you know, the problem is not the quantity of inclusion panels and so on, but rather the quality.

Alexis Hieu Truong  43:33 
So for those who are listening in or from post-Soviet states like Ukraine, how can people ensure that their work gets out there on their terms. What would be your advice?

Volodymyr Ishchenko  43:46 
I believe that the most important thing is to address global questions from the universal perspective and try to think what Ukraine can, what we can learn from Ukraine and broader post-Soviet region, for the basically, for the humanity, for the whole world, not trying to be, to claim our narrow niches as Ukrainians that needs to be represented. Well, that's just a part of this, of the task. But we need to be represented not simply as Ukrainians, but as social scientists who has something very important to say, or as artists who produce beautiful art, or as public leaders who speak something universally relevant. And that's something that I believe have been very much underestimated in the last years, and what is still important and will be important in the discussions, not just Ukraine, but not just of our region, but what is standing in front of the world at large right now.

Rosie Hancock  45:02 
Volodymyr, we want to thank you for joining us today. I think we've learned a lot, and it's, I mean, it's just been so exciting to talk to you.

Volodymyr Ishchenko  45:10 
Thank you so much, this was exciting.

Rosie Hancock  45:11 
And so that's it for another episode of Uncommon Sense. Remember to head to thesociologicalreview.org to check out not only our show notes, but our other podcasts and also The Sociological Review magazine, including Alice's piece on the journey of this show and what it can offer not just to listeners, but guests too.

Alexis Hieu Truong  45:34 
We will be back next month with Aaron Winter, talking about free speech.

Rosie Hancock  45:39 
Our producer is Alice Bloch. Our sound engineer, Dave Crackles. Thanks for being with us today, bye.

Alexis Hieu Truong  45:45 
Bye.