Panel: Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution

The events at Maidan this past winter and developments since have focused world attention on Ukraine and the challenges it confronts, to rebuild the state, while defending itself against a former imperial ruler determined to control it. The Maidan was the main stage in a drama of a people struggling to realize a pluralist, democratic future, oriented towards European societal and governance values, in particular respect for the rule of law and human rights. Maidan brought together in common purpose a very wide spectrum of the national community – Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others; Right and Left; young and old; educated and established, everyday and struggling.

The panel will examine how the events of the Maidan, its outcome and what has followed, are shaping today’s Ukraine, and what this might mean for its various communities, including the Jewish community; diasporas; and more broadly for the future of the European project and international order. The panelists will address these issues from both expert and personal perspectives. YONI GOLDSTEIN, Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Jewish News, will act as moderator. Panelists include:

CHRYSTIA FREELAND is a Canadian writer, journalist and politician, of Ukrainian descent. She studied Russian history and literature at Harvard University, and Slavonic Studies at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She has served in various editorial positions with the UK Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, and Thomson Reuters, where she was the managing director and editor for consumer news, before seeking the Liberal Party nomination in the by-election to replace Bob Rae as the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre. She was elected to Parliament in the November 2013 by-election, and is the Liberal Party’s trade critic in Parliament.

Rabbi TINA GRIMBERG has led Congregation Darchei Noam (Reconstructionist) in Toronto since 2002. Born in Kyiv, she came to the United States when she was sixteen, where she developed a passionate interest in the Jewish heritage not readily accessible to her in the Soviet Union. Since 2008, she has been a leader in the inter-religious dialogue with Muslims and Christians in Ontario and has been active in the movement against poverty in Canada. Her autobiographical book, Out of Line Growing Up Soviet, which presents a view of the life of a young Jewish girl growing up in Kiev in the 1960s and 1970s, won numerous awards.

Violinist MARK MARCYK is the ringleader of the Juno-Nominated Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Toronto’s folk-phenom collective known for their exuberant musical happenings. Mark was a first-hand witness to the events on the Maidan in Kiev last winter, and returned to Ukraine in the spring with the Lemonchiki Project, a collective of eight multi-ethnic musicians who toured the country singing songs of war and revolution, and of peace and tolerance.

ALEXANDER (SASHA) SHERBAKOV is a photojournalist, born in Kyiv and living in Israel since the age of 17. He spent several months on the Maidan during the crisis, to bear witness to and record the events. His photographs of Maidan were distributed by Associated Press, and also exhibited at the Andrei Sakharov Museum in Moscow in May. His project, “Eyes of Maidan” is on exhibit at the 2014 Ashkenaz Festival.

Historian FRANK SYSYN is Director of the Peter Jacyk Centre for Ukrainian Historical Research at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of the Hrushevsky Translation Project. A specialist in Ukrainian and Polish history, he is the author of multiple books and serves on the editorial boards of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, and the Journal of Ukrainian Studies.

Co-presented with the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.