Many children’s book heroes, just like Hollywood actors, enjoy international fame. Karlsson, Harry Potter and the Little Prince are perhaps the most famous of all on the imaginary walk of fame. But none of their adventures could have been enjoyed in Ukrainian without the talents of their translators. Several unseen magicians were able to balance the difficult task of converting the words into a new language while preserving the intangible style and meaning of the original tales. The story of Karlsson, the lovable and pudgy man on the roof, was translated into Ukrainian in the 1960s by Olga Seniuk, now 82. Originally planning to study English, her life took a different twist when...

Over the last few years several articles have appeared about the collaboration between a fraction of “Ukrainian nationalists” (a splinter led by Mykola Lebed from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Stepan Bandera) and the United States Central Intelligence Agency. These mostly personal accounts have been more “confessions” rather than “revelations.” Almost from the planting of the initial collaborative seeds between “Prolog” and the CIA, the Ukrainian community guessed at the “special relationship.” Granted there was no proof, but only because no one cared enough about it to dig for evidence. One of the former presidents of “Prolog”, the late Roman Kupchinsky and more recently the director of its British affiliate the Ukrainian Press Agency...

Based on recent historical, archaeological, and architectural research, the authors provide detailed descriptions of the hetman residence in the town's citadel, Mazepa's suburban manor house, the spectacular Rozumovsky palace, and other architectural monuments. It is richly illustrated with portraits, Baturyn aerial views, photos and drawings of its restored fortifications, churches, palaces, the treasury, the guest-house, heating stoves adorned with patterned ceramic tiles, Mazepa's coat of arms, and significant archaeological finds. The booklet also provides information about Canadian and Ukrainian archeologists and researcher scholars working in Baturyn...

After President Viktor Yanukovych refused to back down to Western demands to release jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko last week, the European Union postponed his Oct. 20 visit to its capital indefinitely – until, officials said, democratic conditions in Ukraine improve. The snub raises fears that Ukraine’s European integration is now at risk, leaving the country alone in the face of increasingly loud demands from Russia, its former Soviet master. The reason for the EU’s wrath is the seven-year prison sentence given to Tymoshenko on Oct. 11 after what many in the West regard as a show trial. Brussels had pressed Yanukovych to find a way to release his main political rival, but the president indicated to a group of Western journalists on Oct. 17 that this was not in the cards...

Personal revenge and the triumph of the natural gas lobby are the most convincing explanations for President Viktor Yanukovych’s defiance of democracy and his political persecution of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The two rationales are related. During and after the 2010 presidential election campaign, Tymoshenko prophesized accurately about her own fate and that of the nation if Yanukovych became president. On Oct. 26, 2010, after the Yanukovych administration started jailing former members of her government, she said: “The mafia is showing that if you go against them, sooner or later you’ll be in jail. They have to show that they are in full control of people’s lives and that anyone that crosses them will end up behind bars...

Ukraine has failed in its attempt to get Russia to lift key commodity restrictions in effect for the past 15 years. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on Russian television Wednesday that the free trade agreement signed between Russia, Ukraine and six other nations of the former Soviet Union on Tuesday excludes crucial commodities such as oil, gas and sugar. “For us the most sensitive is sugar,” Azarov said in a comment made in St. Petersburg and carried by state television Pershiy. “It was always on the list of restrictions, but we have agreed for the first time that...

Official Kyiv found an amusing way of celebrating the six-month anniversary of its chairmanship of the Council of Europe: putting former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in prison and filing criminal charges against a dozen of her former cabinet members and officials. The October 11 verdict in Tymoshenko’s trial put Ukraine’s train on the wrong track. Its final destination and the speed with which it reaches it is solely dependent on one person—President Viktor Yanukovych. He is the only person in a position to either stop this train or change its direction. After a few months in pre-trial detention, followed by...

The obtuseness of the Yanukovych regime appears to know no bounds. After a puppet court sentenced former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in jail on October 11th, after that verdict provoked howls of protest from everybody—from Washington to Brussels to Moscow—the Yanukovych folks have just lodged new criminal charges against Tymoshenko, this time for her business activities back in the 1990s. In doing so, they have effectively thumbed their noses at Europe. That leaves one option only on...

Former KGB agent Putin has put a closer union with the now-sovereign republics at the top of his agenda since announcing plans to return to the Kremlin in a job swap with President Dmitry Medvedev in March. He promoted a “Eurasian Union” in an article published on October 4 – an idea denounced by leading Republicans in the US Senate – and on Tuesday disclosed the creation of a new post-USSR free trade zone. “To our own surprise, after long, tense but ultimately constructive negotiations, we resolved the main issue,” Putin said during a meeting with other regional prime ministers...

Russia, Ukraine and six other former Soviet republics signed a free-trade agreement Tuesday that will scrap export and import duties on some goods. The deal was announced after talks in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city. Three more ex-Soviet nations — Uzbekistan and oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — did not sign the agreement but said they would consider doing so before the end of the year. The free-trade deal was signed at a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose group of 11 nations formed shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not identify the goods that...