Monatsarchive: Juli 2018

The Odessa Holocaust Museum is to Holocaust museums as the Odessa Holocaust Memorial is to Holocaust memorials. The entrance is via an alleyway. I stood waiting for the steel door within to open, stepped on something crunchy and looked down … Weiterlesen →

I’m sitting on a park bench looking at this memorial and pondering why I find it uncompelling. I think first off is the figures being smaller than lifesize on a large base detracts, rather than adds, to the monument’s effect. … Weiterlesen →

The mode that since the 1970s has underpinned the global political economy is that of neoliberalism or financialised capitalism, which since the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the ensuing recession has only become further entrenched, and has been assuming overtly … Weiterlesen →

Material on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, in the US generally known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact, reminded me of museum displays in Lithuania, Belarus, and Moldova, and how while in the US WW II begins September 1, 1939, in Belarus and Russia … Weiterlesen →

I read an article about Odessa in relation to genocide in WW II that had a photo of this plaque at the Odesa-Sortuval’na train station, and thought I’d go see the plaque. What’s not at all apparent from the photo is … Weiterlesen →

Ukraine is stuck in a vice of authoritarian neoliberal kleptocracy with fascicisation tendencies. —Yuliya Yurchenko, Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict, (London: Pluto Press, 2018). I am finding Yurchenko’s book interesting reading, and am struck … Weiterlesen →

Potemkin Steps. Happily there are no baby carriages in sight. Catherine II National Academic Theater