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Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine
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.
Each time Ukraine has rebuilt itself over the last century, it has been plagued by the same corruption, poverty, and, most of all, Russian aggression. 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.
With a keen eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Pinkham presents a dynamic account of contemporary Ukrainian life. 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. These fascinating personalities, rendered in a bold, original style, deliver an indelible impression of a country on the brink.
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.
Each time Ukraine has rebuilt itself over the last century, it has been plagued by the same corruption, poverty, and, most of all, Russian aggression. 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.
With a keen eye for the dark absurdities of post-Soviet society, Pinkham presents a dynamic account of contemporary Ukrainian life. 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. These fascinating personalities, rendered in a bold, original style, deliver an indelible impression of a country on the brink.
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.
293 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 5, 2016
29 people are currently reading
530 people want to read
About the author
Sophie Pinkham
3 books34 followersSophie Pinkham is a professor at Cornell University and a former NEH Public Scholar. Her writing on Russia and Ukraine has appeared in the New York Review of Books, New York Times, Guardian, New Yorker, and Harper’s. She lives in Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 1, 2020
Although 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. 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.
Pinkham’s book is rather unfocused. 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. 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. The reader is given a smattering of details on Ukrainian culture—including language, customs, and food. Always, always, always there is alcohol flowing. (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.)
Pinkham highlights the rampant corruption in the government, legal, education, and medical systems in Ukraine. At the time she visited, lived, and worked in the country, it was not uncommon for physicians to expect bribes from young, drug-addicted mothers. Many doctors and HIV-and-drug-addiction “harm reduction” outreach workers were themselves abusing drugs, which began flowing into Ukraine in the 1990s. Opioids were often cheaper than tobacco. The sex trade, sex tourism, and Ukrainian bride-buying businesses also flourished.
Later in her book, Pinkham turns to the political situation in Ukraine. She was not in the country at the time of the 2013-2014 demonstrations in Independence Square, but she was well informed by her many acquaintances who participated, and she’s evidently done a great deal of additional research—there’s an extensive “sources” section appended to the book. Her discussion of the major events of the time is nuanced, diverging from the simplified (good guys vs. bad guys) impression that the mainstream Western media has promoted.
It was interesting for me to have read this book right after finishing the second volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography, which focuses on the writer’s time and activities as a Communist Party member. Lessing observes in her memoir that many people engage in political demonstrations for the drama and emotional intensity of the experience; political conviction may be incidental. Pinkham seems to intimate the same thing.
While I enjoyed this book, I was occasionally frustrated by its impressionistic nature. Among other things, Pinkham’s overview of Crimean history confused me, she never actually defines what she means by “harm reduction”, and—I’ll say it again—there are just too many names and anecdotes about eccentric acquaintances.
Pinkham’s book is rather unfocused. 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. 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. The reader is given a smattering of details on Ukrainian culture—including language, customs, and food. Always, always, always there is alcohol flowing. (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.)
Pinkham highlights the rampant corruption in the government, legal, education, and medical systems in Ukraine. At the time she visited, lived, and worked in the country, it was not uncommon for physicians to expect bribes from young, drug-addicted mothers. Many doctors and HIV-and-drug-addiction “harm reduction” outreach workers were themselves abusing drugs, which began flowing into Ukraine in the 1990s. Opioids were often cheaper than tobacco. The sex trade, sex tourism, and Ukrainian bride-buying businesses also flourished.
Later in her book, Pinkham turns to the political situation in Ukraine. She was not in the country at the time of the 2013-2014 demonstrations in Independence Square, but she was well informed by her many acquaintances who participated, and she’s evidently done a great deal of additional research—there’s an extensive “sources” section appended to the book. Her discussion of the major events of the time is nuanced, diverging from the simplified (good guys vs. bad guys) impression that the mainstream Western media has promoted.
It was interesting for me to have read this book right after finishing the second volume of Doris Lessing’s autobiography, which focuses on the writer’s time and activities as a Communist Party member. Lessing observes in her memoir that many people engage in political demonstrations for the drama and emotional intensity of the experience; political conviction may be incidental. Pinkham seems to intimate the same thing.
While I enjoyed this book, I was occasionally frustrated by its impressionistic nature. Among other things, Pinkham’s overview of Crimean history confused me, she never actually defines what she means by “harm reduction”, and—I’ll say it again—there are just too many names and anecdotes about eccentric acquaintances.
July 14, 2017
Sophie Pinkham was a moderately privileged New York City girl when in 2004 she volunteered to go to Siberia to work with AIDS patients for the Red Cross. She'd studied Russian in college "on a whim" and didn't quite know what she was looking for, thinking only that she'd find it in the back end of the world. She didn't, but kept looking in Ukraine as it stumbled from crisis to crisis.
Black Square is what she saw along the way.
Ukraine has had a rough time of it since the USSR splintered in the 1990s: two revolutions, corruption, governments of varying degrees of incompetence or cravenness, economic decline, alcoholism and drug addiction, civil war, and putting up with a meddlesome neighbor (Russia) that figuratively and literally has issues with boundaries. Why is a nation that should be rich so abject? There's no diagnosis here, but the symptoms are on clear display.
Pinkham writes clear prose with a good eye for detail and a nose for the absurd, which is in great supply here. This really isn't a memoir; she leaves out the non-Ukraine bits, such as her times back home scratching for another grant or nebulous NGO job to take her back to Kiev. You'll meet ravers and artists and musicians, hippies and aid workers, AIDS patients and addicts and various other kinds of victims. The author is decent company and, thankfully, she usually spends more time talking about the people she meets than about herself.
If you're looking for a serious discussion of how Ukraine came to be the basket case it is, try In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine ; you won't get it here. If you want to hear what various segments of Ukrainian society think about the state of things, look elsewhere; Pinkham hangs out with artsy types and aid workers whose views are more-or-less predictable. The author herself seems to float above it all, dipping in and out of the mess without fully engaging in it. The only time she seems truly rooted in this environment is during a summer idyll with Ukrainian hippies on the Crimean coast (pre-Russian repossession), which is both the most personal and least enlightening sequence in the book.
The biggest disappointment comes via an accident of timing: Pinkham wasn't in-country when the Maidan Revolution exploded. Instead of a personal, emotional account of the rising of Kiev, a city she claims to love, we get reportage, which is available in surplus. She never goes to the Donbass, depriving us of a first-hand view of how people now live in that benighted place.
Black Square is an impressionistic collection of snapshots taken by someone who is more than a tourist to but less than an inhabitant of one of the world's more troubled places. It's too personal to be true journalism but too superficial to be heartfelt reminiscence. In the end, you'll have learned a few things about Ukraine, but it'll feel like a meal of appetizers: a sampler rather than a full entree.
Black Square is what she saw along the way.
Ukraine has had a rough time of it since the USSR splintered in the 1990s: two revolutions, corruption, governments of varying degrees of incompetence or cravenness, economic decline, alcoholism and drug addiction, civil war, and putting up with a meddlesome neighbor (Russia) that figuratively and literally has issues with boundaries. Why is a nation that should be rich so abject? There's no diagnosis here, but the symptoms are on clear display.
Pinkham writes clear prose with a good eye for detail and a nose for the absurd, which is in great supply here. This really isn't a memoir; she leaves out the non-Ukraine bits, such as her times back home scratching for another grant or nebulous NGO job to take her back to Kiev. You'll meet ravers and artists and musicians, hippies and aid workers, AIDS patients and addicts and various other kinds of victims. The author is decent company and, thankfully, she usually spends more time talking about the people she meets than about herself.
If you're looking for a serious discussion of how Ukraine came to be the basket case it is, try In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine ; you won't get it here. If you want to hear what various segments of Ukrainian society think about the state of things, look elsewhere; Pinkham hangs out with artsy types and aid workers whose views are more-or-less predictable. The author herself seems to float above it all, dipping in and out of the mess without fully engaging in it. The only time she seems truly rooted in this environment is during a summer idyll with Ukrainian hippies on the Crimean coast (pre-Russian repossession), which is both the most personal and least enlightening sequence in the book.
The biggest disappointment comes via an accident of timing: Pinkham wasn't in-country when the Maidan Revolution exploded. Instead of a personal, emotional account of the rising of Kiev, a city she claims to love, we get reportage, which is available in surplus. She never goes to the Donbass, depriving us of a first-hand view of how people now live in that benighted place.
Black Square is an impressionistic collection of snapshots taken by someone who is more than a tourist to but less than an inhabitant of one of the world's more troubled places. It's too personal to be true journalism but too superficial to be heartfelt reminiscence. In the end, you'll have learned a few things about Ukraine, but it'll feel like a meal of appetizers: a sampler rather than a full entree.
March 17, 2022
“Putin has given us a nation”
How bitterly ironic it is that this is the first book that I started this year, on January 1st. As usual while reading the book I made a series of notes and comments to myself, and I was planning to include them in my review, comparing the author’s experience in Ukraine to my own as an exchange student there. But now after February 24th, everything has changed and I don’t really feel like commenting this book any more. Where my memories of this wonderful country and its wonderful people are, there is just a lot of pain and denial that all of this is real. I wish I could turn back time to a when I would have just commented on the tone and style and my favorite parts, and dismiss this war like a horrible nightmare.
How bitterly ironic it is that this is the first book that I started this year, on January 1st. As usual while reading the book I made a series of notes and comments to myself, and I was planning to include them in my review, comparing the author’s experience in Ukraine to my own as an exchange student there. But now after February 24th, everything has changed and I don’t really feel like commenting this book any more. Where my memories of this wonderful country and its wonderful people are, there is just a lot of pain and denial that all of this is real. I wish I could turn back time to a when I would have just commented on the tone and style and my favorite parts, and dismiss this war like a horrible nightmare.
January 4, 2018
Someone with privilege and no public-health background yups it up in, like, Eastern Europe! You know, "The Ukraine"!
This yup came to speak at my university last year and is clearly someone with the right connections, having gotten the hook-ups at the Ivies and now publishing (as a typical out-of-touch "academic"). I read the book anyway and what I got from it were stereotypical views of Slavic people (haha! fur coats and red lipstick and "child-rearing"!) and hipster nonsense (spending time with her new artsy hook-up Slavic "boyfriend" at the beach).
I knew I was reading something from a space-martian from planet privileged-NYC with this one:
"I was just another girl in a cubicle, doing the usual two years before leaving for graduate school, the standard trajectory for administrative assistants at O.S.I.” — George Soros’s Open Society Institute. “I had the feeling that I was a mass-produced good. My row of cubicles was almost entirely female, dark-haired and petite. We all wore colorful pashmina shawls to protect us against the air-conditioning, and we got our periods at the same time.”
Since when is it standard to work for 2 years and trudge on over to graduate school? Sounds so difficult! The level of entitlement and self-absorption here and throughout the book is is simply off-the-walls.
Pass.
This yup came to speak at my university last year and is clearly someone with the right connections, having gotten the hook-ups at the Ivies and now publishing (as a typical out-of-touch "academic"). I read the book anyway and what I got from it were stereotypical views of Slavic people (haha! fur coats and red lipstick and "child-rearing"!) and hipster nonsense (spending time with her new artsy hook-up Slavic "boyfriend" at the beach).
I knew I was reading something from a space-martian from planet privileged-NYC with this one:
"I was just another girl in a cubicle, doing the usual two years before leaving for graduate school, the standard trajectory for administrative assistants at O.S.I.” — George Soros’s Open Society Institute. “I had the feeling that I was a mass-produced good. My row of cubicles was almost entirely female, dark-haired and petite. We all wore colorful pashmina shawls to protect us against the air-conditioning, and we got our periods at the same time.”
Since when is it standard to work for 2 years and trudge on over to graduate school? Sounds so difficult! The level of entitlement and self-absorption here and throughout the book is is simply off-the-walls.
Pass.
July 17, 2017
Sophie Pinkham's memoir / history of modern Ukraine really feels like two books that have been spliced into one - one book on the problems of drugs, HIV, poverty, and marginalization of sexual minorities in Ukraine, and one on the revolution and it's aftermath. Both books are revealing and important, but it's hard to find the clear connections between them. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it is in tracing the connections between these that the reader gains the fullest sense of the people and politics of modern Ukraine.
The author's writing style is engaging, and she does a very good job contextualizing her interactions with Ukrainian nationals. However, her descriptions of those she calls her friends and of herself are of inconsistent depth and intimacy - at times Pinkham is reflective, but most of the time her lens is focused on the world around her. The result is some loose ends and ambiguities that can be a little puzzling. For example, what becomes of the heroin addict young doctor she befriends in her earliest travels and re-connects with in her subsequent trips? While I understand that the realities of life are that people drop out of contact, some closure for the reader would be helpful.
I found the attention to cultural expectations between Ukrainians, Russians, and those who experience different degrees of cross-acculturation to be fascinating. Similarly, the exposition of internal politics, conspiracy theories, and the practical implications of US-Russian political pressures was remarkably well written. The humanitarian account of addictions (and the organizations allegedly meant to address them) reminds me a lot of the program implementation problems I often read about when looking at development work in Africa - inadequate infrastructure, motivations, knowledge, execution, and resources abound.
Overall, the book is deeply informative and provides a human perspective on the often abstracted political and social problems of modern Ukraine, while not losing sense of the larger national and international narratives. Readers hoping to better understand the humanitarian and political issues of Eastern Europe will find this book quite helpful.
The author's writing style is engaging, and she does a very good job contextualizing her interactions with Ukrainian nationals. However, her descriptions of those she calls her friends and of herself are of inconsistent depth and intimacy - at times Pinkham is reflective, but most of the time her lens is focused on the world around her. The result is some loose ends and ambiguities that can be a little puzzling. For example, what becomes of the heroin addict young doctor she befriends in her earliest travels and re-connects with in her subsequent trips? While I understand that the realities of life are that people drop out of contact, some closure for the reader would be helpful.
I found the attention to cultural expectations between Ukrainians, Russians, and those who experience different degrees of cross-acculturation to be fascinating. Similarly, the exposition of internal politics, conspiracy theories, and the practical implications of US-Russian political pressures was remarkably well written. The humanitarian account of addictions (and the organizations allegedly meant to address them) reminds me a lot of the program implementation problems I often read about when looking at development work in Africa - inadequate infrastructure, motivations, knowledge, execution, and resources abound.
Overall, the book is deeply informative and provides a human perspective on the often abstracted political and social problems of modern Ukraine, while not losing sense of the larger national and international narratives. Readers hoping to better understand the humanitarian and political issues of Eastern Europe will find this book quite helpful.
December 30, 2019
I wish I could give this less than one star. Pinkham misses some very basic things in the culture about which she writes (I may be hypersensitive to these issues having lived there for 8 years). She is shockingly naïve in her analysis of political maneuvering (sure... Putin opened the Russian border with Ukraine to war victims (a war he started) out of the warmth of his compassionate heart).
She writes about spending all of her time with people on the fringe of Ukrainian society (which is great!). But then she presents their unusual opinions as if they represent the opinions of Ukrainians on the whole (not great!). She presents recognized facts alongside disgustingly false alternative realities as if they both are equally plausible (Was flight MH17 shot down by a Russian weapon imported into Ukraine or did Europe freeze some corpses, load them on a plane, and intentionally blow it up over Ukraine to make Russia look bad? I guess we'll never know!). If all you knew of Ukraine came from this book, you would think it is a seedy, disgusting place filled with citizens that have no dignity. That is not Ukraine.
She writes about spending all of her time with people on the fringe of Ukrainian society (which is great!). But then she presents their unusual opinions as if they represent the opinions of Ukrainians on the whole (not great!). She presents recognized facts alongside disgustingly false alternative realities as if they both are equally plausible (Was flight MH17 shot down by a Russian weapon imported into Ukraine or did Europe freeze some corpses, load them on a plane, and intentionally blow it up over Ukraine to make Russia look bad? I guess we'll never know!). If all you knew of Ukraine came from this book, you would think it is a seedy, disgusting place filled with citizens that have no dignity. That is not Ukraine.
July 9, 2016
Funny, heartbreaking, informative, and original, this book feels like you are traveling through Ukraine with the author as your delightful, soulful companion. The writing is beautiful, the insights are profound, and the characters are unforgettable.
February 7, 2017
Navigating the Western narrative alongside the reports from the Russian media has been incredibly frustrating in trying to understand the recent conflict in Ukraine. Talking to people in my circle of friends hasn't been much different from reading the news. For those interested in an objective account I couldn't recommend this book more!
The mastery of Russian language and simultaneously the impartiality of an outsider put the author in a very unique position of being trustworthy for both sides of the conflict. Sophie's book gives the reader an opportunity to experience Ukraine from a vast number of vantage points that her characters represent. With a detailed background in the country's history (and it's various regions), the author will leave you fully equipped to make your own judgements.
The mastery of Russian language and simultaneously the impartiality of an outsider put the author in a very unique position of being trustworthy for both sides of the conflict. Sophie's book gives the reader an opportunity to experience Ukraine from a vast number of vantage points that her characters represent. With a detailed background in the country's history (and it's various regions), the author will leave you fully equipped to make your own judgements.
November 28, 2017
Three-line review: This memoir is a brutally honest if jaded account of Ukraine's recent history, the events leading up to the Maidan Revolution, and the effects the Revolution has had on the country. Told by a Russian-speaking American public health volunteer who worked for several months at a time in Ukraine, this book offers a counter-perspective to the pro-Ukrainian vibe portrayed in the popular documentary "Winter on Fire." While Pinkham weaves in insight and commentary from local friends and colleagues, her position of privilege makes it hard to fully embrace what she has to say even though many of her surface-level descriptions of Kyiv resonate with my personal experiences as an expat living in the country.
March 8, 2022
A good thing to read right now, for obvious reasons. Pinkham's book is more memoir than history or journalism, which was not quite what I was expecting (and why I didn't enjoy it quite as much as something by Barbara Demick), but she does a decent job weaving the complicated history of Ukraine in with her personal tales or working for HIV/AIDS organizations in the 2010s. A book that proves that, like most things, things are more complicated than the Very Online leftists and conservatives who think they're experts in foreign policy after reading a Twitter thread would have you believe.
March 4, 2018
Living in Kiev currently, it was great to hear about my city from someone who has spent some time here and describes the streets and restaurants I know. Beyond that, I had trouble with this book, as it seemed poorly edited and unfinished. Perhaps that was the point of the style, but many of the chapters did not seem to work together, and I am not sure what her conclusions were about her experience/travels, if she had them.
September 18, 2024
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Специфическая получилась книга, в том смысле, что не каждому читателю понравится данное произведение. Дело в том, что фактически книга состоит из одних лишь историй или, если быть более точным, из описания встреченных автором людей и их личных, зачастую трагических, историй жизни. Так как автор работала в американской НКО, которая занимается вопросами ВИЧ-инфицированных, то большая часть людей, с которыми познакомилась автор, и, следовательно, большая часть историй этой книги, люди с ВИЧ. В этом смысле ты читаешь наполненную горестями и трагедиями книгу, написанную преимущественно в чёрных тонах, такое вот беспросветное (социальное) дно украинского общества. Впрочем, описание социального дна дано довольно детально, поэтому с частичной уверенностью можно сказать, что в книге мы находим типичное описание постсоветской республики в самый пик её экономического, социального и морального кризиса. Точно такая же картина могла происходить в любой другой республике бывшего СССР (коррупция, бедность и пр.), включая, конечно же, и РФ. Кстати о РФ. Книга начинается не Украиной, а именно что Россией, впрочем, как я уже отметил, картина примерно одна и та же и можно даже не осознать, что история волонтёрской деятельности в Сибири закончилась и началась волонтёрская деятельность где-то на востоке Украины.
Так как мне всегда скучно читать истории самых обычных людей, особенно если это люди с социального дна, эта книга очень быстро мне наскучила (не так быстро как другая похожая книга, которая тоже состоит лишь из похожих таких вот историй - I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country). Да, автор даёт примерное представление украинского общества, но честно сказать, невозможно сформировать себе образ того, как выглядела Украина в то время. Автор опустилась на самое социальное дно, и описывает жизни этих людей, находящихся на этом самом дне, однако многие остальные граждане Украины жили в достатке и не знали всех тех ужасов, что описывает автор, и тем более у них не было такой проблемы как неизлечимое заболевание. В общем, книга не для всех.
The book is specific, in the sense that not every reader will enjoy this work. The fact is that the book consists of only stories or, to be more precise, descriptions of people met by the author and their personal, often tragic, life stories. Since the author worked for an American NGO that deals with HIV-positive people, most of the people the author met, and therefore most of the stories in this book, are people with HIV. In this sense, you are reading a book filled with sorrows and tragedies, written mostly in black colors, such a hopeless social bottom of Ukrainian society. However, the description of the social bottom is quite detailed, so we can say with partial certainty that the book is a typical description of a post-Soviet republic at the peak of its economic, social, and moral crisis. The same picture could happen in any other republic of the former USSR (corruption, poverty, etc.), including, of course, the Russian Federation. Speaking of the Russian Federation. The book starts not in Ukraine but in Russia. However, as I have already mentioned, the picture is approximately the same, and one may not even realize that the history of volunteering in Siberia ended and volunteering began somewhere in the east of Ukraine.
Since I am always bored reading the stories of the most ordinary people, especially if they are people from the social bottom, this book bored me very quickly (not as quickly as another similar book, which also consists only of similar stories - "I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country"). Yes, the author gives a rough idea of Ukrainian society, but honestly speaking, it is impossible to form an image of what Ukraine looked like at that time. The author went down to the very social bottom and describes the lives of these people who are at this very bottom, but many other citizens of Ukraine lived in prosperity and did not know all the horrors that the author describes. Moreover, they did not have such a problem as an incurable disease. In general, the book is not for everyone.
Специфическая получилась книга, в том смысле, что не каждому читателю понравится данное произведение. Дело в том, что фактически книга состоит из одних лишь историй или, если быть более точным, из описания встреченных автором людей и их личных, зачастую трагических, историй жизни. Так как автор работала в американской НКО, которая занимается вопросами ВИЧ-инфицированных, то большая часть людей, с которыми познакомилась автор, и, следовательно, большая часть историй этой книги, люди с ВИЧ. В этом смысле ты читаешь наполненную горестями и трагедиями книгу, написанную преимущественно в чёрных тонах, такое вот беспросветное (социальное) дно украинского общества. Впрочем, описание социального дна дано довольно детально, поэтому с частичной уверенностью можно сказать, что в книге мы находим типичное описание постсоветской республики в самый пик её экономического, социального и морального кризиса. Точно такая же картина могла происходить в любой другой республике бывшего СССР (коррупция, бедность и пр.), включая, конечно же, и РФ. Кстати о РФ. Книга начинается не Украиной, а именно что Россией, впрочем, как я уже отметил, картина примерно одна и та же и можно даже не осознать, что история волонтёрской деятельности в Сибири закончилась и началась волонтёрская деятельность где-то на востоке Украины.
Так как мне всегда скучно читать истории самых обычных людей, особенно если это люди с социального дна, эта книга очень быстро мне наскучила (не так быстро как другая похожая книга, которая тоже состоит лишь из похожих таких вот историй - I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country). Да, автор даёт примерное представление украинского общества, но честно сказать, невозможно сформировать себе образ того, как выглядела Украина в то время. Автор опустилась на самое социальное дно, и описывает жизни этих людей, находящихся на этом самом дне, однако многие остальные граждане Украины жили в достатке и не знали всех тех ужасов, что описывает автор, и тем более у них не было такой проблемы как неизлечимое заболевание. В общем, книга не для всех.
The book is specific, in the sense that not every reader will enjoy this work. The fact is that the book consists of only stories or, to be more precise, descriptions of people met by the author and their personal, often tragic, life stories. Since the author worked for an American NGO that deals with HIV-positive people, most of the people the author met, and therefore most of the stories in this book, are people with HIV. In this sense, you are reading a book filled with sorrows and tragedies, written mostly in black colors, such a hopeless social bottom of Ukrainian society. However, the description of the social bottom is quite detailed, so we can say with partial certainty that the book is a typical description of a post-Soviet republic at the peak of its economic, social, and moral crisis. The same picture could happen in any other republic of the former USSR (corruption, poverty, etc.), including, of course, the Russian Federation. Speaking of the Russian Federation. The book starts not in Ukraine but in Russia. However, as I have already mentioned, the picture is approximately the same, and one may not even realize that the history of volunteering in Siberia ended and volunteering began somewhere in the east of Ukraine.
Since I am always bored reading the stories of the most ordinary people, especially if they are people from the social bottom, this book bored me very quickly (not as quickly as another similar book, which also consists only of similar stories - "I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country"). Yes, the author gives a rough idea of Ukrainian society, but honestly speaking, it is impossible to form an image of what Ukraine looked like at that time. The author went down to the very social bottom and describes the lives of these people who are at this very bottom, but many other citizens of Ukraine lived in prosperity and did not know all the horrors that the author describes. Moreover, they did not have such a problem as an incurable disease. In general, the book is not for everyone.
May 29, 2022
Good Account Of Ukrainian Life
The author worked as an AIDS/HIV educator in Ukraine post independence. She shares a lot of insight into every day life. Good.
The author worked as an AIDS/HIV educator in Ukraine post independence. She shares a lot of insight into every day life. Good.
March 25, 2017
Sophie Pinkham is a good writer, and this enabled me to finish this book. Unfortunately, I still don't know what the point of what I read was. Is it a memoir? Political commentary? A secondhand report of recent political events?
The parts I found most engaging were Pinkham's own travels and experiences around Ukraine and Russia, although I'm never sure from this text that she actually gets any public health work done. The latter parts of the book are pieced together largely from secondhand sources* and her inconsistent visits. This technique is fine, but she can't actually explain the systematic problems in Ukraine (or Russia) from this kind of work, so what is she trying to do?
If you are Ukrainian, or know a lot about Ukraine, you may be strongly put off by Pinkham's rejection of any presentations of Ukrainian culture. Anthropologists (like me) know that "culture" is contested and fluid, but that should not lead us to mock people for wearing traditional clothing to vote or for rejuvenating the kobzar musical tradition, as this book does. Pinkham seems to think every display of Ukrainian culture was manufactured during the Soviet era, even in the 2000s; she sees no authenticity here. But she makes no effort to actually understand the ethnic diversity of western Ukraine (calling Hutsuls "cowboys" throughout and even stating outright that she didn't bother to figure out who Rusyns really are) so I'm not convinced that she has really thought about how culture works in this setting, or how the meaning of being Ukrainian is something that people participating in these practices thought a lot about.
I'm happy to see Ukraine getting more representation in contemporary non-fiction, but I urge the readers of this book to explore Pinkham's further reading section to learn more.
*To be fair, I skipped the chapters about Maidan, since I was there myself and didn't need to read yet another secondhand version of those events.
The parts I found most engaging were Pinkham's own travels and experiences around Ukraine and Russia, although I'm never sure from this text that she actually gets any public health work done. The latter parts of the book are pieced together largely from secondhand sources* and her inconsistent visits. This technique is fine, but she can't actually explain the systematic problems in Ukraine (or Russia) from this kind of work, so what is she trying to do?
If you are Ukrainian, or know a lot about Ukraine, you may be strongly put off by Pinkham's rejection of any presentations of Ukrainian culture. Anthropologists (like me) know that "culture" is contested and fluid, but that should not lead us to mock people for wearing traditional clothing to vote or for rejuvenating the kobzar musical tradition, as this book does. Pinkham seems to think every display of Ukrainian culture was manufactured during the Soviet era, even in the 2000s; she sees no authenticity here. But she makes no effort to actually understand the ethnic diversity of western Ukraine (calling Hutsuls "cowboys" throughout and even stating outright that she didn't bother to figure out who Rusyns really are) so I'm not convinced that she has really thought about how culture works in this setting, or how the meaning of being Ukrainian is something that people participating in these practices thought a lot about.
I'm happy to see Ukraine getting more representation in contemporary non-fiction, but I urge the readers of this book to explore Pinkham's further reading section to learn more.
*To be fair, I skipped the chapters about Maidan, since I was there myself and didn't need to read yet another secondhand version of those events.
March 21, 2017
Despite the subtitle, Black Square is not just about Ukraine. It is about the shrapnel the explosive nineties left in Russian and Ukrainian society, from the free travel of drugs that accompanied free borders, to Ukrainians’ struggle with their Soviet inheritance every Victory Day. Through anecdotes from Ukrainian and Russian colleagues and her own travels, Pinkham paints a portrait of Ukraine from the early 2000s to 2015 that, though vivid, falters in its attempt to illustrate a multifaceted society. Though she tries to cover all classes and regions in Ukraine, too often does she fall back on experiences with overwhelmingly young, artistic hipster types from Kyiv and western Ukraine. Some parts, like her discussion of the Donbas, almost entirely lack in-depth firsthand testimonies, even though those would have bolstered already interesting arguments rare in Western media. I wanted to see more like her coverage of the 2013-14 Maidan protests: though she did not attend them, she drew on rich historical contexts and personal interviews to represent the complex dialogue surrounding Ukrainian identity. Pinkham’s work sheds vital light on post-Soviet daily life, but I hesitate to extend Black Square from highly recommended for Russia-Ukraine aficionados to required reading for all.
Read
September 1, 2016"For vivid and mostly sympathetic images of the "blue and yellow" Ukraine, with its embroidered blouses, mushroom pickers, outsider artists, pre-annexation Crimean nudists, and ethno-nationalist kitsch, with a strange dose of hippie contemporaneity," Pinkham is the one to read. She is intimate, sincere, and unpretentious–the perfect cultural commentator. She excels in letting people speak for themselves."
William T. Vollmann on Sophie Pinkham's Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine in the Fall 2016 issue of Bookforum
To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://bookforum.com/inprint/
William T. Vollmann on Sophie Pinkham's Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine in the Fall 2016 issue of Bookforum
To read the rest of this review, go to Bookforum:
http://bookforum.com/inprint/
July 15, 2019
An interesting account of modern-day Ukraine, from someone who was there. Pinkham initially went to Ukraine to help combat the HIV epidemic. Her observations on conditions in the country, which span about a decade, are pointed and uncover a lot of the problems- both in the country and in the aid organizations that try to help. Through this book, you meet several people who call the country home. They are seen, unfiltered, as imperfect people with their strengths and faults. Anyone wanting a quick, engaging and relatively current read on that region should pick this book up.
March 9, 2019
This book was fascinating. Pinkham is an American woman who decides to go to Russia and Ukraine to work with drug addicts and those who have contracted HIV. She discovers the beauty and complexity of Ukrainian-Russian relationships and cultures along her way. I particularly enjoyed her discussions of the various political parties and he short biographical sketches of those attracted to each of them. Certainly, the book has me dreaming of my next trip to Ukraine.
October 30, 2018
A thoughtful book written by a caring, empathic journalist and social worker. Clear-eyed and fair-minded. Does a better job than most of trying to describe the motivations on either side of the ongoing tensions in Ukraine. Meanders a bit, but so does history. An enjoying read from a unique perspective and a good supplement to the less personal books on the subject.
October 1, 2019
I got this immediately before Ukraine blew up in the news, so it's timely for me.
Informative book but recent Ukrainian history is pretty depressing. The author's experiences are drawn from people she met through various AIDS organizations, adding an extra layer of tragedy on top of an already bleak picture.
Informative book but recent Ukrainian history is pretty depressing. The author's experiences are drawn from people she met through various AIDS organizations, adding an extra layer of tragedy on top of an already bleak picture.
August 18, 2016
Sophie spent many years travelling across Ukraine, from working with AIDS sufferers to persecuted Crimean Tatars, from Jewish community notices who've never seen a crucifix to Maidan protestors. An important book in demonstrating Ukraine and its politics are complex and multi-layered.
November 8, 2017
Some of Paul Manafort's "work" is indirectly described here.
March 25, 2025
I loved this book so much, and I'm not exactly sure why. As others have noted, it's almost two separate stories spliced together - the author's own experiences in harm reduction/HIV treatment in Ukraine and other areas, and then Ukrainian political movements. It was published in 2016, so reading it reminded me of reading The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, where you are getting key background and foreshadowing of later events.
Of course, this book also made me think of Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets in providing at least a stab at understanding the post-Soviet world, including how (some) former Soviet citizens look back at that time. I'm not going to pretend to fully understand any of this, but I was interested to learn more about the background of which language(s) are spoken where, by whom, and how that is received.
Separate from the politics, and especially in the first half, I just loved the writing:
"As we waited in the cold for a bus to take us to the terminal, we watched the Russian slip into full-length furs and bulky hats, like shape-shifters assuming their animal forms. They eyed our thigh-length down parkas with a mixture of pity and contempt. Russians can't stand to see a person underdressed."
Having raved about the book, I can see how others had trouble following some of the narratives of different people the author encounters repeatedly (although at the same time, sometimes it's a bit repetitive, which made me wonder if some of the chapters had initially been published as separate articles). There's also a condescending tone, especially initially, that I think tapers off.
I came to this book from an interview on The Critic and Her Publics and was really glad I picked this up!
Of course, this book also made me think of Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets in providing at least a stab at understanding the post-Soviet world, including how (some) former Soviet citizens look back at that time. I'm not going to pretend to fully understand any of this, but I was interested to learn more about the background of which language(s) are spoken where, by whom, and how that is received.
Separate from the politics, and especially in the first half, I just loved the writing:
"As we waited in the cold for a bus to take us to the terminal, we watched the Russian slip into full-length furs and bulky hats, like shape-shifters assuming their animal forms. They eyed our thigh-length down parkas with a mixture of pity and contempt. Russians can't stand to see a person underdressed."
Having raved about the book, I can see how others had trouble following some of the narratives of different people the author encounters repeatedly (although at the same time, sometimes it's a bit repetitive, which made me wonder if some of the chapters had initially been published as separate articles). There's also a condescending tone, especially initially, that I think tapers off.
I came to this book from an interview on The Critic and Her Publics and was really glad I picked this up!
November 6, 2023
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sophie Pinkham’s 2016 book about the country is now somewhat out of date. This does not mean, however, that it should not be read. Pinkham is a skilled writer who takes readers on an informative and often entertaining, though ultimately uneven, tour of Ukraine in the early 2000s.
Unlike many foreign correspondents, Pinkham is not fully embedded in Ukraine for years at a time. She instead begins her career working in New York’s non-governmental organization sector, focusing on public health issues and making extended trips to Ukraine. This background gives her work a slightly different entry point than most journalists writing about the country; Pinkham introduces readers to other NGO workers, AIDS activists, and patients struggling with drug addiction.
Her firsthand account of post-Soviet Ukraine’s NGO world is the stronger half of Black Square. The book grows less engaging and more paint-by-numbers when Pinkham moves into an account of the Maidan protests (which she mostly observed from afar) and Russia’s subsequent forced annexation of Crimea. Pinkham is a compelling writer, but the second half of Black Square suffers from a lack of immediacy and depth that could only be gained from being on the scene. She shouldn’t be blamed for an accident of timing—I’m sure Pinkham would have wanted to be on the Maidan, if she could have. In the end, though, I wish she had stuck to her original story and developed that in more detail, rather than try to report on events she could only view via livestream.
Unlike many foreign correspondents, Pinkham is not fully embedded in Ukraine for years at a time. She instead begins her career working in New York’s non-governmental organization sector, focusing on public health issues and making extended trips to Ukraine. This background gives her work a slightly different entry point than most journalists writing about the country; Pinkham introduces readers to other NGO workers, AIDS activists, and patients struggling with drug addiction.
Her firsthand account of post-Soviet Ukraine’s NGO world is the stronger half of Black Square. The book grows less engaging and more paint-by-numbers when Pinkham moves into an account of the Maidan protests (which she mostly observed from afar) and Russia’s subsequent forced annexation of Crimea. Pinkham is a compelling writer, but the second half of Black Square suffers from a lack of immediacy and depth that could only be gained from being on the scene. She shouldn’t be blamed for an accident of timing—I’m sure Pinkham would have wanted to be on the Maidan, if she could have. In the end, though, I wish she had stuck to her original story and developed that in more detail, rather than try to report on events she could only view via livestream.
June 26, 2019
There were some interesting elements here, but ultimately it just wasn't that great. It's really a 3.5, I'm being generous because there really aren't a lot of other accounts of the 1991-2016 period in Ukraine told by a westerner.
The author worked in (IMO, largely ineffectual) NGOs (harm reduction, HIV mitigation), and saw the fucked-up post-Soviet culture of Ukraine. Then the book goes a bit into the periphery of Maidan, the ATO, Russian invasion, etc. There were some good insights into the national character of the different people of Ukraine, but it didn't really present events from a particularly cohesive framework (of course, a lot of it was just chaos, and the ending still isn't known) -- it was still pretty on-the-ground vs. information about high level actors, though.
Overall, decent, and rather depressing. Took me forever to finish because every chapter seemed like the place was getting worse (my contact with Ukraine is a very select infosec subculture which is actually doing pretty well, although there's a shortage of investment capital; those people are pretty insulated from a lot of this.)
The author worked in (IMO, largely ineffectual) NGOs (harm reduction, HIV mitigation), and saw the fucked-up post-Soviet culture of Ukraine. Then the book goes a bit into the periphery of Maidan, the ATO, Russian invasion, etc. There were some good insights into the national character of the different people of Ukraine, but it didn't really present events from a particularly cohesive framework (of course, a lot of it was just chaos, and the ending still isn't known) -- it was still pretty on-the-ground vs. information about high level actors, though.
Overall, decent, and rather depressing. Took me forever to finish because every chapter seemed like the place was getting worse (my contact with Ukraine is a very select infosec subculture which is actually doing pretty well, although there's a shortage of investment capital; those people are pretty insulated from a lot of this.)
February 26, 2021
The best thing I've read on the conflicts in Ukraine since 2013-2014. Pinkham reports from the ground on various aspects of the conflict: both popular support for EU accession and opposition to it, particularly from the left; how the brutal repression of the Maidan protests spurred mass support, including from those who didn't agree with the protests' original aims; the incredible level of social mobilization in Kiev around the protests, and the extraordinary roles played by average people; the Russian interference in the east and also, as the conflict wore on, the often horrifying and dehumanizing attitude toward pro-Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. No matter who she's talking to, Pinkham's reporting is marked by fairness and a very human curiosity.
April 6, 2022
It was interesting to learn more about the geography and culture of post-Soviet Ukraine, especially with Ukraine in the news every day. As with a lot of Russian books, I struggled to keep the names and people straight, and gave up at times. My biggest problem with the book was a lack of flow and disjointed writing. It was hard to follow. The book ended with The War, for Crimea I suppose, but because of what’s going on now, I wasn’t clear. I got confused about the Right Faction, and whether or not Ukraine even wanted to claim the eastern parts as their own.
April 24, 2023
The best part of this book is Pinkham is a fantastic writer. I really enjoyed the descriptions and phrasing used throughout the book. The first two thirds were something of a personal memoir of her travels there from 2000-2010 working with harm-reduction NGOs, the last third was more of a history lesson of Maidan and the years following. I think the structure of the book was a bit disorganized but overall a great read.
January 14, 2020
I chose this book serendipitously and was rewarded with a page-turning insight into Ukraine and it's unique modern history. Reading Black Square coincided with the impeachment proceedings of Donald Trump, helping me to see the proceedings with new insight into the culture of corruption, American involvement in the region, and Russian's long heavy shadow.
I highly recommend this read.
I highly recommend this read.
April 7, 2022
An excellent primer on Ukraine through 2015. Accessible, engaging, well-researched, and heartfelt. Pinkham's great ease with a variety of people shines through and is the strength of this mixture of memoir, reportage, and travel writing. A real gem of a book that brings people and events to life for the reader.
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