Cultural Colonization. Fear, Humiliation, and Resistance of Ukraine in the Soviet Empire. Radomyr Mokryk

This book is a story about how culture became a battlefield. For centuries, the Russian-Soviet empire tried to form an inferiority complex in Ukrainians, falsified our history, and imposed its language. These strategies of cultural colonization were for it a tool of expansion and occupation, as well as a way to pave the way for military invasion.

At the same time, it is the story of the struggle of the sixties, dissidents, and human rights activists who understood that to defend national identity during the times of Soviet rule was to fight for the future. Even after the collapse of 1991, the Soviet empire left behind not only street names and the Russian language in cities, but also myths about “brotherly peoples” and the habit of looking back at Moscow, deeply rooted in the minds of millions of Ukrainians.

Radomyr Mokryk's book is an attempt to understand the role of culture in the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation and a reminder of the consequences that neglecting it can lead to.