Browsing: New releases

CHICAGO – Can a Russian-speaking, Soviet-raised, Kharkiv-born woman, who spent her childhood summers in Russia singing Russian folk songs with her Russian grandmother, be Ukrainian? For Forbes journalist and editorial director Katya Soldak, it took a decade of soul-searching travel between Brooklyn and Kharkiv to answer that question.

This past summer, the Ukrainian National Museum hosted its first live event in over a year, during which Ms. Soldak shared her intimate journey in her feature-length documentary “The Long Breakup” with 50 viewers.

“Pitun’s Last Stand: An Entertainment about the Fall of Russia,” by Alexander Motyl. Published independently, 2021. 189 pp. ISBN 979-87178-26198. Paperback, $10.

This attractive and colorful publication is the ninth annual booklet in a series (2011-2020) devoted to the archaeological and historical research of Baturyn, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine.

NEW YORK – Rutgers University professor Alexander Motyl has published his latest novel, Pitun’s Last Stand, a Graham-Greenesque “entertainment” about serious events in Russia.

“Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Europe and the Birth of Modern Nationalism in the Slavic World,” by Anna Procyk. Toronto-Buffalo-London: University of Toronto Press, 2019. 273 pp. ISBN 978-1-4875-0508-0. Hardcover, $75.

MONTREAL – The French-language educational version of the documentary film “Le Génocide d’une nation,” produced and directed by Yurij Luhovy, has been made and released on DVD. Narrated by international acclaimed actress Geneviève Bujold, the 26-minute school version will be an important addition to French-language resource material for educators in the teaching of the Holodomor worldwide.

The DVD’s June release marked the 10th anniversary of the Province of Quebec recognizing the Holodomor as genocide. On June 3, 2010, the Quebec National Assembly, in a third and final reading, unanimously passed Bill 390, “An Act to proclaim Ukrainian Famine as Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day.” Attending this historic event in Quebec City was Ukraine’s former Ambassador to Canada Ihor Ostash, with members of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Montreal Branch and Montreal’s Ukrainian community.

“Pryhody Gnomyka Romtomtomyka (The Adventures of Romtomtomyk the Gnome) by Roman Zavadovych, in Ukrainian, with illustrations by Edward Kozak. Lviv: Rodovid, 2019, 40 pp. $8.

Thanks to the efforts of the Plast sorority Pershi Stezhi, a beloved children’s character has become available to new generations.

“Your Ad Could Go Here,” by Oksana Zabuzhko; translated by Halyna Hryn, Askold Melnyczuk, Nina Murray, Marco Carynnyk and Marta Horban; edited by Nina Murray. Seattle, Wash.: Amazon Crossing, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-5420-2252-1, softcover, 270 pp., $14.95. (Also available in hardcover and as an e-book.)

Oksana Zabuzhko, author of “Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex,” has published a new short story collection. In “Your Ad Could Go Here,” Ms. Zabuzhko explores the ties that bind sisters, parents and children, friends and lovers, husbands and wives. Her vulnerable, wise and cruel characters challenge the concept of truth and capture the strangeness of being human.

“Selected Poems,” by Oksana Zabuzhko, edited by Askold Melnyczuk with McKenzie Hurder. Medford, Mass.: Arrowsmith Press, 2020. ISBN: 978-1-7346416-3-9, softcover, 75 pp., $18.

This concise compilation of selected poems, 14 in all, by the noted Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko features translations of her works by Marco Carynnyk, Askold Melnyczuk, Michael Naydan, Lisa Sapinkoff, Douglas Burnet Smith, and Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps.

“Mr. Jones,” a feature film written by Andrea Chalupa and directed by the Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland, is a joint Polish, Ukrainian and British production that was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and released in the United States in April of this year. Its Ukrainian title is “The Price of Truth,” and at its center is one man’s struggle to get to the truth about Joseph Stalin’s famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, which the regime was hiding from the outside world on the eve of the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States.

“Mr. Jones” is based on real people and real events. The movie’s central character is Gareth Jones, a young Welsh journalist who travels to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s hoping to interview Stalin. Instead, he ends up uncovering the dictator’s big secret, the Ukrainian famine. Jones’s principal antagonist is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent of The New York Times Walter Duranty, who uses his considerable status to publicly attack Jones and deny the existence of the famine. The two leading actors, James Norton (Jones) and Peter Sarsgaard (Duranty), brilliantly capture this struggle for truth during what was one of the darkest periods in European history.

It seemed like yesterday that a little girl with blonde pig tails came over to our home in Parma, Ohio, to play with my daughter Larissa and her little brother Marko. They were a creative little bunch who played out their make-believe stories in our wooded backyard. But there was a difference in how the little blonde girl played with my children. Not only did she participate in their play, but she would tell them how to play, what to do and how the story should proceed. When we bought our first video recorder, the play acting turned to “film-making,” and thus her first movie attempts were made. That little girl was Roksolana Toporowych, affectionately known as “Roxy.”

NEW YORK – The feature film “Julia Blue” is available for purchase and rent on Amazon Prime Video beginning May 4 in the United States and the United Kingdom.

An award-winning film, “Julia Blue” captures the story of a young woman who comes into her own in war-torn Ukraine, where she finds her path towards independence and a brighter future challenged by unexpected love.

“The film humanizes a world historical event by dwelling not on the movers and shakers of history, but rather on how world events invade and shape the life of one remarkable young woman while bringing awareness to the war in Ukraine,” said film critic Thelma Adams.