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 our team (Valeriia, Maksym, Solomiya, and Tetyana) answers the questions from our Patreon community. Now, we are releasing some of them to the public while working on a new season.

Also:

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. Ukrainians are not the only nation that can tell you a lot about the violence of Russian colonial assimilation. But the daily sacrifices of Ukrainians fighting off the empire inspire other survivor nations to speak up. For a very special and moving season three finale, we bring Qazaq democracy activist Yevgeniya Plakhina and Qazaq thinker Azamat Junisbai for an episode where we celebrate Qazaq culture, history and Ukrainian-Qazaq solidarity in a defiance to Russia that tried but failed to erase us.

The tracklist for this episode includes:

Check out our Patreon for the multimedia lists to decolonize your knowledge about Qazaq culture, history and identity, curated by Yevgeniya Plakhina and Azamat Junisbai for the #UkrainianSpaces family.

Also:

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 colonial imperialism stealing and appropriating indigenous artists. The entire concept of 'Great Russian culture' is a big colonial lie. For this one, we feature Ukrainian art historian and journalist Oksana Semenik, who survived the genocide in Bucha by pure luck. But the Russian empire messed with the wrong Ukrainian — after escaping mass slaughter, Semenik launched a global crusade to decolonize mislabelled Ukrainian art in museums worldwide and reclaim the artists stolen by Russia.

Check out our Patreon page for the reading list to decolonize your knowledge about Ukrainian art, curated by Oksana Semenik for the #UkrainianSpaces family.

Also:

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 the entire world is sure that Crimea is somehow 'always been russian.' After Crimea, russians deployed the same occupation formula in countless other lands. They keep using it in modern-day Ukraine, too. To decolonize the Qirim myth and explain why Ukraine won't be free until Qirim is free, we asked the help of Alim Aliev, one of the most prominent Ukrainian Qirimli, deputy director of the Ukrainian Institute, a journalist and human rights advocate. 

Please, also help Ukrainians to survive the consequences of russia-made flood in southern Ukraine. Check the list of trusted fundraisers the Ukrainian Spaces family members put together.

SUPPORT: #UkrainianSpaces is a 100% independent, volunteer, and listener-supported initiative. We exist thanks to donations: please ⁠⁠⁠become our Patreon sponsor and help us to amplify more Ukrainian voices.⁠⁠⁠

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 Ukrainian identity without allowing her own biases to affect the research. Our featured Ukrainian is a scholar and author of 'The Zelensky Effect' Dr. Olga Onuch. 

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 Russians’ “brotherly” embrace. Russian is my mother tongue, and liberation means ripping it out of my throat.'

There's so much talk about russian-speaking Ukrainians abroad. But how often have you heard actual russian-speaking Ukrainians being part of those conversations? It is rhetorical. The language issue is at the epicenter of understanding the Ukrainian decolonization journey. And Ukrainians who are or used to speak Russian as their first language are the most critical voices to explain it. We invite back Ukrainian scholar Sasha Dovzhyk to discuss her sensational essay 'Mother Tongue: The Story of a Ukrainian Language Convert' and share truths about russian-speaking Ukrainians with the rest of the world.

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 shared history and by a shared colonial abuser, learning about Sakartvelo is crucial for your understanding of why Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine and why the empire will inevitably fall. For another bridge episode, we invited Nodar Rukhadze, a Georgian civil rights activist, journalist, and the founder of the Shame Movement, to educate us about his personal and Sakartvelo's decolonization struggle.

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 crucial period in her life - when she is decolonizing and figuring out what being Ukrainian means when you are also Jewish. Do both clash or contradict each other, considering the complicated and tragic history of the Jewish people in Ukraine? Maria has much to share with the rest of the world and fellow Jewish people globally. 

find #UkrainianSpaces on ⁠⁠ukrainianspaces.com⁠⁠ _ ⁠⁠twitter⁠⁠ _⁠⁠insta⁠⁠_

Val’s ⁠⁠twitter⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Insta⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠tiktoks⁠⁠

Maksym’s ⁠⁠twitter⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠insta⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠tiktoks⁠⁠

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:

Our Patreon family has exclusive access to the Q&A session recorded as a bonus podcast episode during this show - available through our Patreon page.

Слава Україні!

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:

Enjoy part one. This show reminds the world that:

Слава Україні!