34 Comments
Mar 6, 2023Liked by Timothy Snyder

All excellent..we have contributed directly thru personal contacts in the military and purchased drones..contributed to medic vehicles...as well we gave clothing, household items to refugees here...and the opera tickets for state opera in kyiv performance on February 24 were used by friends..this is no time for fussing over tax returns, even in modest amount possible scams..have helped a friend get visa for her mother to get out...just pick something and do it..moreover- we preach to the converted..so try to keep friends and family aware..post on social media..everyone can do something..this is war and even if we cannot fight directly, we can in other ways. Join local marches...for those of us of a certain age, we once marched and protested Viet Nam..well, we may be old and soft, but can still step up

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Mar 6, 2023Liked by Timothy Snyder

This is a good list donated to a new organization thank you

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Great list. In addition we are giving to the Kyiv Independent through Patreon.

I would like to know if there are any groups trying to get the women and children that were deported returned. In the news today one little boy was released from the occupied area.

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author

I will write on that issue separately again.

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from the NYTimes today:

"In The Hague, the International Criminal Court plans to open two war-crime cases and seek arrest warrants for several people — how high-ranking is unclear — according to people with knowledge of the decision. The cases charge that Russia has deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and abducted Ukrainian children and sent them to indoctrination camps.

However important the cases are as a statement of rebuke, no trial is likely to result. Russia will almost certainly refuse to hand over suspects, and the court does not try people in absentia."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/world/europe/russia-ukraine-attacks-donbas.html?

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Mar 7, 2023Liked by Timothy Snyder

Thank you!! This is a huge help, really.

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Thank you for all you do for Ukraine! An appropriate contribution to Documenting Ukraine is this film 'Wartime Verses from Kyiv' in which great Ukrainian Russian-language poet Aleksandr Kabanov is reciting his poetry from Ukraine's capital to the powerful war pictures (goes with English subtitles). The quiet tragic power of his poems written in the city undergoing regular shelling and power outages, reminded me of 7th Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich. Performed in the besieged Leningrad in 1942, this music became a symbol of Culture confronting Evil. Kabanov's wartime poetry is another high example of the same struggle. https://youtu.be/Zqxx1rJzZ2k

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author

Thank you for letting me know about this.

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Of course. Your loud voice in support of Ukraine is very important. For most immigrants from the former Soviet Union, like myself, the necessity of helping Ukraine in every way is obvious, but for most people in the West it’s not. That was the reason I created my YouTube channel and made this film about Kabanov’s poetry – I’m trying to do exactly what you’re doing so effectively. I’m also writing a book ‘Ukraine 2022-23. The Test for the West’ in which I quote you frequently – the link to one such chapter is below, there I quote your old essay ‘The Sadness of Sloviansk’. Actually, I already invited you as a guest to my channel through your Yale assistant, but most likely the invitation never reached you. I apologize for using public space for inviting you again, but it seems to be my only chance of getting your attention, and I firmly believe that my activity for Ukraine deserves your support. Thank you for your consideration.

https://zhenyakiperman.substack.com/p/part-3-the-splendors-and-miseries

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Thank you so much for providing a link to this video. When you compare the poems of Osip Mandelstam to those of Aleksandr Kabanov you say, "Mandelstam could not say, 'above OUR victorious colors'. Therefore, his sensibility is totally tragic. No hope there. But with you, even though the intonation is tragic, the last chord is in the major key." It is interesting how often final movements in musical works about death, especially those of the 19th century, don't just *end* in a major key, but are *in* a major key*** so that, for example, the movements that both begin and end Brahms's magnificent "Ein deutsches Requiem" are *in* a major key.

By the way, I found your youtube page, and am going to watch one of your videos every morning after I get up.

***It is not unusual for the last chord of *final* movements of works in a minor key to be in the parallel major, whether or not they are about death, which has to do more with the perceived instability of the minor third as part of a final chord. So that's not what I'm talking about. Rather, what is noteworthy is that it is so often the case that the entire final movement of a work about death is *in* a major key so that one is not left, as you say, with a sense of tragedy, but of hope.

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Dear Rose, thank you for making my day! My channel is mostly made for the Western audience and it takes literally hundreds of hours to make English subtitles, especially when translations of poetry are involved, so getting a thoughtful viewer like you makes all this work worthwhile. Also, my mother is a musician, a pianist who taught all her professional life at St.Petersburg Conservatory, so I very much appreciate your insightful musical comparisons and will read them to my mother. Thank you!!

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Thanks for this, Zhenya. I'm going to watch it tomorrow morning.

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founding

Thank you Professor Snyder. I see one two of the organizations I make regular donations to on the list you provided.

One thing to keep in mind for anyone who is a federal worker, in the U.S. military or has an active federal security clearance, there are prohibitions and special reporting requirements around donations to foreign military and governments.

This is a great article to help you determine if you should seek assistance of your HR or compliance representative in your company.

https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/03/ukraine-security-clearance-fed-workers-donations/362781/

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Thanks for that

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Thanks for the suggestions of how to help Ukrainians. Georgia and I have given significantly to the World Central Kitchen. Locally we are assisting a group in Orient NY that has adopted a recently arrived Ukrainian family—husband, lawyer wife, and two children. The estimate is that it will require up to $100,000 to accomplish their successful resettlement. So far we have raised more than $50,000.

Whatever the overall magnitude of needs, helping individual Ukrainian families seems an important way for American communities to demonstrate their support.

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I have made donations to Razom and UA24 but I am on a fixed income. I do have a cd for a rainy day but I read about a Sovereign Ukraine Bond offered by Canadian banks. I like the idea that I can use this money now to help Ukraine and still have available sometime down the road if I need it. The cd I have is with TD bank here in America but when I called TD Canada they said it was not available to Americans, only Canadian citizens.

Does anyone know of an American institution doing something similar. I have never had any stocks or bonds so going through my bank would be in my experience.

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I want to say, thank you, professor Snyder. On the days I come close to despair, faced with such cruelty,and such indifference to it in some places, your intelligence and focus help me keep going

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"The record of local civil society in this war is impressive, the record of the big international organizations less so." Thanks for this info, as I've been wondering about international organizations. All of my donations have been going to local Ukrainian groups.

Something you mentioned right after you started to raise money for the Shahed Hunter program: If I remember rightly, you said that what you wanted to do originally was to raise money for a library, I think in Chernihiv? which had contained, among other things, NKVD documents. Were any of those documents digitized before the library was destroyed? Sometime in the future, could you please give us a report on what's going on with it? I would love to donate to its reconstruction. Thank you!

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I will — it was a ruin in September, will think about whether and how and when

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Thank you.

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Thank you for these resources, Professor Snyder.

I would like to add the displaced children of Ukraine to your list. To date, there are more than 1.8 million Ukrainian kids living outside Ukraine, struggling to cope with new languages, cultures, and schools, not to mention the trauma of war. As someone whose passion and mission is to help children develop the emotional intelligence (EQ) and literacy skills (IQ) they'll need to become kind, capable adults, I knew something had to be done to help them.

I am currently working on Song Flight, a global program that brings displaced Ukrainian children together with their peers to learn from and with one another. It is based on my 14 years working as a children's media developer focused on emotional intelligence in classrooms around the world.

We are just wrapping up the pilot (in English and Ukrainian) and plan to expand our ability to reach children in other countries and additional languages as funding becomes available. It's an ambitious undertaking but I am convinced that our future depends on raising children who have the emotional and literacy skills to tackle the world's problems.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and talk about the challenges involved in helping so many children spread out around the world.

Here are some links:

- Song Flight: https://Song-Flight.com

- The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC): https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/song-flight-to-pilot-its-initiative-for-displaced-ukrainian-children/

- Kontakt Ukrainian TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=077xcSlIR0g

- Song Flight blog: https://open.substack.com/pub/songflight/p/song-flight-in-the-ukrainian-news?r=13nlz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Thank you so much for this information. I have donated to United24 but I have been anxious to help in other ways. Signed up for monthly payments to Razom and Ukraine Aid Ops!

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Great information. Thank you! I have donated to Razom, United 24, and I am a monthly donor to the Ukrainian World Congress. I am excited for the opportunity to listen/watch the event at the Munk School March 17-19. And I found the panel at Yale from a few days ago on Youtube yesterday held on the one year commemoration of the terrorist invasion of Ukraine. Really appreciated hearing it.

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Mar 8, 2023·edited Mar 8, 2023

I would like to add one, if I may! This is a legal not for profit grassroots organization that helps deliver humanitarian aid and gathers donations for the military. I will be working with them myself, and am currently trying to help them find more funding sources. I went to Kyiv in February and met 2 of these amazing young people. https://www.instagram.com/volunteeer.home/ And thank you so much, Dr. Snyder, for all you do for Ukraine! Слава Україні!

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I will share this with my Greek Orthodox congregation! We have received some Ukrainian families - women and children, no men yet.

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