A cultural portrait of eastern Ukraine, and an urgent, essential read.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, its eastern region – Donbas – has been synonymous with conflict, cities such as Mariupol and Lysychansk becoming familiar to us through the images and reports of brutal devastation. Victoria Donovan excavates a rich, multicultural history of this area, and paints a radically different picture.
Travelling from the dramatic, jagged peaks of Bilokuz’mynivka to the marshland of Mariupol, from a warehouse rave to an abandoned gypsum mine, the physical world and its importance to this region’s identity is brought to vivid life. But above all else, by speaking to those whose lives are embedded there now – curators, artists, railway workers, young people who have grown up amidst instability and destruction – Donovan gives this place back its voice and reveals the intensely personal lived reality of Putin’s war.
Revelatory, evocative and deeply humane, Life In Spite of Everything is a celebration of a country’s past and present, and its people’s tenacity, creativity and independence.