Identity and Culture under Attack with Sasha Dovzhyk and Eugene Finkel

The Ukraine Shelf's second episode hosts Dr Sasha Dovzhyk and Eugene Finkel to discuss threats to Ukrainian culture and identity Russia has attempted to repress and destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity over two centuries. In this episode, we trace the historical roots of Russia’s current aggression to imperial myths from the early 19th century, and look at how these myths have resurfaced repeatedly over time. We explore the most recent wave of violence through the tragic story of Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer who was killed in a Russian missile attack in 2023. The books under discussion are Eugene Finkel’s Intent to Destroy: Russia’s Two Hundred Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (Basic Books, 2024) and Victoria Amelina’s Looking at Women Looking at War (Harper Collins, 2025). Guests Dr Sasha Dovzhyk Dr Sasha Dovzhyk is a Ukrainian writer, editor, and cultural manager. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, and has taught at Birkbeck and UCL SSEES, worked as a special projects curator at the Ukrainian Institute London, and edited three books. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Guardian, European Voices, New Lines, Index on Censorship, CNN, and others. She edits the London Ukrainian Review. Having lived in London for nine years, she has recently moved back to Ukraine to help set up INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange. Eugene Finkel Eugene Finkel is the Kenneth H. Keller Professor of International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University. Finkel's most recent book is Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine (Basic Books, 2024). He is also the author of Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust (Princeton University Press, 2017), and co-author of Reform and Rebellion in Weak States (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics and Security in Putin’s Russia (Oxford University Press, 2023). His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, and other journals. Finkel also published articles and op-eds in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, The Spectator and other outlets.