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marcishore.bsky.social
Historian, professor, author "The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution;" "The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism;" "Caviar and Ashes."
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Brilliant.

submitted 22 hours ago • 11 comments

Hannah Arendt located the origins of Nazism in the German bourgeoisie’s secretly delighting in the mob’s irreverence. For the fun of having the curtain pulled on their own hypocrisy, Arendt describes, the elite “did not at all object to paying a price, the destruction of civilization.”

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

“The habit of civilization is fragile.”--Czesław Miłosz

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

"Unfortunately 'never again' didn't come with a manual on how-to-never-again"--Jan Böhmermann

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

"Often giving in to the budding autocrat’s demands appears to be the rational, reasonable thing to do: to protect your business, to save your employees’ or your colleagues’ jobs. . . That kind of obedience is exactly what gives the autocrat his power."-- @mashagessen.bsky.social

submitted 15 hours ago • 1 comment

A reminder: in 2019 Trump tried to buy Zelensky with aid in exchange for damaging information about Biden's family. Trump assumed Zelensky could be bought. Their phone conversation was “perfect," Trump said. And why would it not be, if all relationships are understood to be a priori transactional?

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"The Americans proposed that Ukraine concede half of the profits from its mineral rights in perpetuity. . .in exchange for essentially nothing. This is not a monetary proposition, let alone a 'deal,' but rather the demand that Ukraine become a permanent American colony."@timothysnyder.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"It is possible that Trump has also been convinced, in some larger sense, that Ukraine is simply a vulnerable colonial territory that can be carved up, as in the redivision of a plot of property in a real estate transaction."-- @timothysnyder.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

"The increase to Musk's wealth since Trump was elected president three months ago is greater than all of the American aid given to Ukraine over the last three years."-- @timothysnyder.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 24 comments

The lives this American administration has taken in its first month. @nytimes.com

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

"The Ukrainians, who have suffered hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties, whose cities have been turned to rubble. . .are offered nothing in exchange for half their wealth. . .The cruelty of the document is remarkable."-- @anneapplebaum.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

“The White House is a full-time Kremlin propaganda operation. . . . It’s a devastating moment for the free world.”— @chrismurphyct.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

It's probably a sign of the times that it's become virtually impossible to locate an available library copy of Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Neither Zelensky nor anyone else should trust this American administration. @kyivindependent.com

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

A reminder from the talented satirist Yoni Brenner of the early days of Zelensky’s relationship with Trump. @newyorker.com

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

I know that @timothysnyder.bsky.social and I are not alone in being enormously proud of @ymonastyrskyi.bsky.social It's a privilege to be able to play a small role in helping prepare the next generation to save our mutilated world. 🥰

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Listening to War in Europe. A Conversation, which is taking place at the Goethe Institute in Boston with panelists: Serhii Plokhii, @marcishore.bsky.social, Liudmyla Kurnosikova and Askold Melnyczuk. #Ukraine

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

"Trump’s claim is not only factually incorrect, but also irresponsible and anti-democratic - Spreading misinformation about Zelensky's legitimacy directly aids Kremlin propaganda and undermines the Ukrainian people’s right to determine their own future." [email protected]

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

I don't know what it will take to shake Europeans out of their Freudian denial that both Putin and Trump are just as vile and sadistic as they have always shown themselves to be. There is no moral sensibility to appeal to in these men--nothing. We're staring into a nihilist abyss.

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

"Three possible framings of the Russian-American talks emerge. First, the Americans sincerely want peace but are just stunningly incompetent. Second, the incompetence is by design. . Third, Putin and Trump have already worked out common plans for the colonial domination of Ukraine. . ."

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

In case it's not obvious: one of the most important voices in political science today is saying this.

submitted 6 days ago • 6 comments

“Four years later, Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immediately made him vanish from history, and of course, from all photographs. Ever since, Gottwald has been alone on that balcony. Where Clementis stood, there is only the bare palace wall."--Milan Kundera

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

For friends in Boston this week:

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

One year ago today Navalny was killed. Trump won't express outrage. He'll ask how we did it.

submitted 7 days ago • 11 comments

Моя власна країна, Америка, була побудована на рабстві. Нагадаю, що наші збройні сили, що воювали з нацистами, були розділені у той час за расовою ознакою. У нашій країні закони спрямовані проти міжрасових шлюбів, тобто проти змішування рас, діяли аж до 1967 року.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Adam Michnik pisał z więzienia w 1985 roku do Kiszczaka: „Są dwie rzeczy na tym świecie – niechaj usłyszy Pan tę nowinę – z których jedna nazywa się Zło, druga Dobro”. Nie wolno wyrzekać się wiary, że różnica pomiędzy Dobrem a Złem naprawdę istnieje.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The irony of the richest man in the world almost single-handedly destroying an agency designed to help the world’s poor, so that the U.S. federal budget has more room for another giant tax cut for the richest man in the world and his pals, should not be lost on anyone. [Cartoon by Mike Luckovich]

submitted 7 days ago • 941 comments

"Moscow will pull Europe apart if we don't trust each other."--Zelensky in Munich

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

"If not Brussels, then Moscow--it's your decision."-- Zelensky to Europeans at the Munich Security Conference

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

"Russia has imposed a reign of terror on the towns and villages it has captured. . . The Reckoning Project. . .has gathered more than 500 testimonies. . .many of them describing the systematic practice of abduction, arbitrary detention, and torture, including beating and electrocution."-N. Gumenyuk

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

It's not impossible that it was.

submitted 8 days ago • 15 comments

Нам недопустимо забывать, что мы имеем дело с людьми.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

A message from Serbian students:

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

"I do think we still need to talk a lot about Syria and Ukraine together, and this is a time now to do that."--Volodymyr Yermolenko @siliconcurtain.bsky.social

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

A reminder: Vladimir Putin could end the war in Ukraine right now, just by ordering his soldiers to go home. No need for treaties or negotiations.

submitted 10 days ago • 230 comments

Live in three hours:

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 10 days ago • 192 comments

Crucial: "Weaponized states create a...collective action problem for establishment elites who...would prefer democracy. The politicians, CEOs, media owners, and university presidents who modify their behavior...are acting rationally...But such acts of self-preservation have a collective cost."

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

🥰

submitted 10 days ago • 3 comments

From my audio publisher:

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

"I have the strange feeling, this week in Kyiv, that Ukrainians are living freer lives now than Americans. At a book store where I was talking to a Ukrainian philosopher about freedom, a young woman put her hand on my arm and said 'sorry about the U.S.'"-- @timothysnyder.bsky.social

submitted 10 days ago • 6 comments

"Right now, America’s legacy of racism is being now directed as a weapon against America itself."--Jason Stanley

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 14 days ago • 173 comments

Arkady Ostrovsky interviews the actress Khamatova @mashagessen.bsky.social describes in @nytimes.com today. A wrenching moment of compromise: Khamatova does what Putin wants because she feels responsible for child cancer patients at his mercy. A stunning illustration of how totalitarian power works.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

When there are no innocent choices: "Russian sociologist Yuri Levada coined the term 'collective hostage-taking' to describe the phenomenon when individuals cannot be free to act because of a constant, credible threat of collective punishment."-- @mashagessen.bsky.social

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

This is a very good, sober summary of the collective action problems and moral dilemmas involved in resisting tyranny.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment