Literature

Using a unique and previously untapped dataset of telegrams sent to student hunger strikers in Soviet Ukraine, this article examines spatial dispersion of civil resistance in a repressive political regime. The study argues that national identity, compared to socioeconomic grievances, explains better the level of opposition in a multiethnic, authoritarian state. The analysis demonstrates that support for the student hunger strike, also known as the Granite Revolution, was higher in areas with a larger proportion of Ukrainian-language speakers. Additionally, the rate of telegram-sending was significantly higher in areas with a more robust presence of the reform-oriented social movement Rukh. Meanwhile, socioeconomic grievances exerted a weaker impact on the rate of telegraphing support for the pro-democracy student movement. Moreover, contrary to classic modernization theory, opposition to the communist regime is found to be lower in areas with a higher level of urbanization. The profile of senders, as well as the content of telegrams, also suggests that identity-based grievances prevailed among supporters of the Granite Revolution. The study makes an empirical contribution to contentious politics literature by exploring patterns of civil resistance and political communication in the era preceding the rise of social media.

Following the 2013–2014 protests against then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in Donbas, one of the major challenges for Ukrainian society has been the displacement of over two million of its inhabitants. In 2015, at the peak of the displacement, Ukraine found itself among the five countries in the world, after Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Nigeria, with the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) associated with conflict and violence, and it continues to rank highest in Europe. Very little research has been done to provide a detailed analysis of how internally displaced persons living in Ukraine and outside the country claim and negotiate their belonging in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and the ensuing war. Feeling of belonging is constructed through a relational process of self- and external categorisation and depends on acknowledgement by other members of the chosen group, therefore this essay also examines the strength and regional specificity of the social distancing towards different groups of Ukrainian IDPs.

Estimates of  1932–34 famine direct losses (excess deaths) by age and sex and indirect losses (lost births) are calculated, for the first time, for rural and urban areas of Ukraine. Total losses are es-timated at 4.5 million, with 3.9 million excess deaths and 0.6 million lost births. Rural and urban excess deaths are equivalent to 16.5 and 4.0 per cent of  respective 1933 populations. We show that urban and rural losses are the result of very different dynamics, as reflected in the respective urban and rural age structures of  relative excess deaths.