Pinkham highlights the rampant corruption in the government, legal, education, and medical systems in Ukraine. (I looked it up: Ukraine ranks sixth in the world for alcohol consumption per capita, and the five nations that come before it on the list are all located in eastern Europe and associated with the former Soviet Union.) Always, always, always there is alcohol flowing. The reader is given a smattering of details on Ukrainian culture-including language, customs, and food. In the first half of the book, Pinkham presents, in quick succession, her many “adventures” attending one festival after another in various regions of the country.
It is so full of stories about the young people she meets through her work with NGOs dedicated to the epidemic of drug abuse and HIV in Ukraine that I could barely keep track of her seemingly innumerable, eccentric “friends” and acquaintances, many of whom are musicians, artists, hippies, and drug addicts themselves. If now slightly dated, Tim Judah’s In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine is a far better introduction to the tensions in the eastern European country, providing a good discussion of events around the time of Euromaidan (the wave of demonstrations that began in November 2013), Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, and the early days of the war between pro-Ukrainian-government fighters and Russian-backed, anti-government troops in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. 2 mapsĪlthough I learned a lot about the culture and politics of Ukraine from reading Sophie Pinkham’s memoir-expository piece, this is probably not the best place to start if you want to learn about recent events in that nation. Black Square is necessary reading for anyone who wishes to learn the roots of the current Russo-Ukrainian war and the stories of the people who live it every day. These fascinating personalities, rendered in a bold, original style, deliver an indelible impression of a country on the brink. She meets―among others―a charismatic doctor helping to smooth the transition to democracy even as he struggles with drug dependence a band of Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian hippies in a Crimean idyll and a Jewish clarinetist agitating for Ukrainian liberation.
With a keen eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Pinkham presents a dynamic account of contemporary Ukrainian life. Sophie Pinkham saw all this and more during ten years in Ukraine and Russia, a period that included the Maidan revolution of 2013–14, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the ensuing war in Donbass. Each time Ukraine has rebuilt itself over the last century, it has been plagued by the same conflicts: corruption, poverty, and, most of all, Russian aggression. A distinctive writer’s fascinating journey into the heart of a troubled region, tracing the origins of the war that is now tearing Europe apart.
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