#221 Ukraine w/ Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2022
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ukraine has gotten a lot of intermittent attention in the US over the last few years, but the stories we hear are usually about the US and Russia. To counter that tendency, we offer you a story about Ukraine that is actually about Ukraine. In this episode, historian Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon joins Ben to talk about the key historical events that have shaped Ukraine and its place in the world today.
Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon holds a MA in Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies from Harvard University and is currently a doctoral student in history at the University of Pennsylvania. You can learn more about her at her website www.kstjulianvarnon.com and follow her on twitter at @KSVarnon.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. Today's topic is Ukraine. Now, maybe you've been hearing a lot about Ukraine recently in the news, but think a second. Have you actually been hearing about Ukraine or have you been hearing about the U.S. and Russia? |
| 0:24.0 | I know that there has been some conversation about Ukraine itself. |
| 0:28.7 | But in my mind, the fact that we are talking about Ukraine as if it is a matter of the U.S. or Russia and not on its own terms, that's a little bit concerning |
| 0:39.0 | because we're in a tight situation right now. Tensions are high. And it just seems to me like |
| 0:45.7 | if we want to know what's at stake, we should have a better understanding of what things |
| 0:50.9 | look like to Ukraine itself. That's not to say the U.S. and Russia's relationship |
| 0:55.3 | aren't important. They certainly are. But I feel like you're getting a lot of that, even if, |
| 1:00.1 | in some ways, often narrow in its scope. I'm happy to report that I found an incredible guest, |
| 1:09.3 | asked around to a lot of scholars and people that I knew, looked over |
| 1:12.5 | some great options. But I picked Kimberly, St. Julian Varnan, and I couldn't be happier about it. |
| 1:18.5 | And the tipping point here, and you guys will get this in this episode, Kimberly is not only an |
| 1:23.1 | expert on Ukrainian history. She has a lot of teaching experience at the community college level, |
| 1:27.9 | even. And so we always try to find someone who can explain these complex things in ways that |
| 1:32.5 | makes sense. That background clearly, clearly is useful here. And I hope you guys take away a bigger |
| 1:38.8 | picture of this story because at the end of the day, there are millions of people in Ukraine |
| 1:43.1 | who we maybe give lip service to, |
| 1:46.6 | but things look different from their perspective. They matter. And we should be thinking about |
| 1:52.4 | everyone involved in this situation, not just the two big powers as we see it on the block. |
| 1:58.3 | So I hope you guys enjoy this. A couple things before we roll into the |
| 2:01.5 | episode. First of all, as always, shout out to everyone who supports us on Patreon and has gone out |
| 2:07.3 | of their way to help. We've got new patrons lately and that's been exciting. Also, thanks to everyone |
| 2:12.3 | who went and rated and reviewed us on Apple Podcasts. We were just pushing 400. I think we had |
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