Wandering the Edge

Olia Hercules - Ukrainian chef, writer and food stylist has been actively working to promote and safeguard Ukrainian cuisine for years. Her cookbooks are amazing and I think should be a stalwart aid of every Ukrainian kitchen. We talked about the history of cuisine, of women's running the household, of our favorite places in Ukraine, of the curious case of "church borshch" and her lo...

Did Catherine the Great found Odesa? No, it's been around for centuries and is far more European than it is Russian! So what other myths surround this Black Sea city? Find out more in this latest bonus episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine For more episodes, sources and extras, please visit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wanderingtheedge.net⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

What does Lufthansa, Picasso and the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Building have in common? They all have links to Mykhailo Boychuk - Ukraine's most prominent modernist painter and the founder and leader of the Boychukists. His work incorporated a Ukrainian essence into a modern spin that tried to break away from the stagnant Russian art world. What happened to him and what became of his influence...

While officially founded in 1256, Lviv has been around since the 5th century. It's importance to Ukrainian history has been due to its trade route location, it's multi-culturalism and its administrative importance in almost every Empire or country it belonged to. Find out more on this episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine For more episodes, sources and...

Ukraine was a founding member of the United Nations. It really didn't do much when the Soviet Union was around, but since 1991 it has been one of the most respected and active participant in UN peacekeeping missions, the first of which was in Bosnia and Herzegovina. How it all started, how they did and why Ukraine became such an important aspect in UN peacekeeping operations is answered in thi...

Kharkiv is Ukraine's second city - second largest, second populous but certainly not the so-called "young city" that Soviet myths like to fantasize. It's old. Older than the 17th century the Russian Empire liked to think too. Find out more on this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine For more episodes, sources and extras, please visit:...

The Soviet-Afghan War begin in 1979 and lasted almost ten years. Ukrainians made up of 25% of the Soviet Armed Forces while it fought in Afghanistan. The war brought the Soviet Union to collapse but also ended up scarring thousands of young Ukrainian men who wanted nothing to do with war afterward. What happened to them and what was their influence on Ukraine after independence? Find out in this e...

When did the capital of Ukraine become established? How many myths are associated with it's founding? Who actually founded it because there seems to be a lot of people who claim that right! Listen to this episode and find the answers to those questions along with others like how many times can a city rebuilt itself and still function as a capital? Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Fo...

Dmytro Vyshnevetsky "Baida" was the first Hetman of Ukraine in the 16th century. Kirillo Razumovsky was the last Hetman of Ukraine in the 18th century. But who were these two very different types of men? And how were they the products of their time and environment? How were the Cossacks treated under their leadership and what type of political leaders were they? Find out the answers to t...

In the 100th episode of Wandering the Edge, Christina Paschyn, director and producer of Etched in Memory discusses the complicated history of the Crimean Tatars within overall Ukrainian history, but also the difficulty of expressing the plight of the indigenous people of Ukraine among a global audience. Her documentary film follows Crimean Tatar activists as they try to survive during the Russian...

The modern Ukrainian currency is the hryvnia, but it is older than Russia! What was the hryvnia and how did it come to be Ukraine's currency? Find out in this episode about the various historical currency that Ukrainians used throughout their history in this episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Mykhailo Hrushevsky, History of Ukraine-Rus (1954) Ellen Feing...

There were thousands of Ukrainians who refused to be repatriated back to the Soviet Union after the end of the Second World War in Europe. These Ukrainians were placed in Displaced Persons camps where they created their own little Ukraine. They took those organizational talents and Ukrainian consciousness with them when they emigrated to various countries and have contributed to the Ukrainian Dias...

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group was filled with varied dissident Ukrainians who wanted Ukrainian independence, self determination and the safeguarding of individual human rights. They fought in their own, on their own terms and were imprisoned for it in the 1970s. Find out who they were, what they fought for and which Ukrainian grandmother had the KGB worrying about having heart attacks! Find out on...

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army had hundreds of thousands of soldiers and supporters but how did they win their battles and how did they loose? And what role did women play? This episode will talk about that but also their importance in Ukrainian history and historiography! Find out in this 2nd episode dedicated to the history and influence of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army on Wandering the Edge! Faceb...

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was an underground Ukrainian guerrilla army that was active during the Second World War and fought against both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. But how were they founded and why did thousands of young Ukrainians join their ranks? Find out in this 1st of 2 episodes dedicated to the history and influence of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army on Wandering the Edge! Facebook...

Did you know the Soviet Union's first show trial was in Ukraine? It happened in 1930 in Kharkiv against the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine and resulted in the guilty sentence of 45 Ukrainian intellectuals. It became the basis of all other show trials which also included those in the 1940s, primarily of western Ukrainians who were part of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Find ou...

Ukraine and Ukrainians have used political assassinations to push their agenda into the spotlight or protest grievances against Ukrainians. Ukrainians have also been targeted by some of the Soviet Union's best assassins and for glaringly obvious reasons. So, who were these high-profile victims and assassins? And how were the assassinations planned and carried out? Find out in this latest episo...

What is "soft power" and how did/does Russia use it not only in Ukraine but among other so-called "Western" countries? This question along with others is talked about in this interview with Dr. Lada L. Roslycky, whom predicted Russia using their Black Sea Fleet to annex the Crimea. She is now the founding managing partner of Black Trident, a defense and security consulting group based in Kyiv. Fin...

Why is Mykhailo Hrushevsky so venerated among Ukrainian historians? And why are his histories so important to Ukrainian historiography? And how this seemingly quiet man become the president of Ukraine in 1918? And how did his life change after this? Find out in this episode of Wandering the Edge. Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Michaelo Hrushevsky, " The Ukraine as a Russo-Austria...

In 1947, the Polish communist state internally displaced the rest of their 150,000 Ukrainian minority. They spattered them among the now empty German territories they gained when Stalin moved Poland's borders west. Why did this happen? And how was the operation conducted? And was it a success? Find out in this episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine For more...

What was the good, the bad and the ugly about Ukraine's first independence in 1918? How did it begin and why did it fail? And who was responsible for it? Find out in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Bohdan Krawchenko, " The Social Structure of the Ukraine in 1917 " in Harvard Ukrainian Studies (1990) Rudolf A. Mark, " Social...

Who were the UPA 4? The 4 women of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army who received 25 years imprisonment for their roles in the Ukrainian underground? How did each women even end up in the UPA? What were their roles and what did they sacrifice for their beliefs? Find out in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Aliide Naylor, " Do Not Give Away that...

During Ukraine's first independence drive, the Ukrainian army attempted to break out through the Monarchist and Bolshevik fronts, these two attempts were known as the First and Second Winter Campaigns. Where they successful? Who commanded them? And why are they important to Ukrainian military history? Find out in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeuk...

Ukraine's primary source on our Medieval history is the Primary Chronicle. But is it a primary source and what is it exactly? Who wrote it? How did it become so important? And how has it evolved throughout the centuries to use as a political tool? Find out more in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Oleksiy Tolochko, " On 'Nestor the...

Why was Volodymyr the Great - great? How did a legalized bastard become the leader of Europe's largest kingdom at that time? And how did he choose Orthodox Christianity as his new religion to baptize this empire? And why is his influence so great in this modern era? Find out in this latest episode of Wandering the Edge! Facebook & Instagram: Wanderedgeukraine Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Eu...