Description

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The chapters in this book represent successive phases of one story - that of Mariupol, formerly Ukraine's tenth largest city, and the second-largest in the Donbas region. The author, a young Slovak academic conducted her ethnographic fieldwork in this coastal town between November 2018 and August 2021, being among the last academics to research Mariupol before its invasion and ultimate occupation by Russia.
During these years, Hana Josticov was overwhelmed by acts of mobilization and resistance that went in opposite directions: supportive of a pro-western direction of Ukraine's future, and the established status quo that the victory of the Euromaidan seemingly threatened.
She noted the sequence of events presented in media pieces and through the lens of individual frames and narratives. Her book is a collection and interpretation of memories and testimonies from both sides: those who actively resisted Russian influence and those who sparked their own revolution, the 'Russian Spring.' The focus is on self-mobilized individuals who resorted to action outside of established organizational structures: spontaneously, autonomously, without resources and guarantees of safety. The evidence confirms that popular support for the Russian Spring had less to do with Russia than with the social, economic, or cultural characteristics of the Donetsk region.
Years of immersive field research convinced Hana that individuals are as important as masses, ideas as powerful as material resources, and beliefs and emotions as critical as weapons.

About the Author

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Hana Josticova is a political ethnographer, currently working as a Research Associate at Central and Eastern European Studies (CEES), University of Glasgow.