Ukrainian information platform WeАreUkraine.info launches English-language special historical project OPIR

Ukrainian information platform WeАreUkraine.info is launching OPIR, an English-language special historical project dedicated to illustrating the history of the resistance movement in Ukraine over the past century, from 1917 to the present day.

OPIR covers the key stages of the Ukrainian society’s development against the backdrop of aggression from the Soviet government and later the contemporary Russian authorities against the people of Ukraine. The project seeks to unravel the Ukrainian tradition of resistance to persecution and repression and to investigate how these processes have influenced the effective resistance of Ukrainians to Russian armed aggression today. The topics of the projects were selected from the perspective of analyzing the progression of resistance tactics and liberation movements through changes in historical circumstances.

“Our mission is to tell the foreign audience how Ukrainians have been defending their rights, fighting for Ukraine’s independence, and resisting the system  for decades, thus forming their resilience. This is a series of publications that does not embrace the entire history of Ukraine but highlights the key events of the last century. It allows us to clearly demonstrate the cause-and-effect relationships and the process of state formation in Ukraine, and show Ukrainians as a unique nation that confidently and independently determines its own path of development,” commented WeAreUkraine.info Editor-in-Chief Inga Vyshnevska.

One of the tasks of the OPIR project is to debunk Russian pseudo-historical narratives and share truthful information about the history of Ukraine. The 15 materials cover the events of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917-1921), the times of the Executed Renaissance, the struggle of the OUN-UPA, the peasant resistance prior to the Holodomor, the preservation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the underground, the Sixtiers movement, the struggle for human rights and the path to independence, as well as a glance at the revolutions of independent Ukraine, the Russian occupation of Crimea, the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2014, and the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The publications for the OPIR special project were prepared by, among others, Anton Drobovych, Head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory; Alim Aliev, Deputy Director General of the Ukrainian Institute; Yaroslav Faizulin, Director of the Central State Historical Archive in Kyiv; Ivan Patryliak, Dean of the Faculty of History at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv; and the authors of the WeAreUkraine.info project. Vitalii Skalskyi, Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Records Keeping provided historical advice to the project.

The materials were prepared by the CSO “Resilient Ukraine” within the framework of the OPIR project with the support of the Stiykist’ Program implemented by East Europe Foundation wit hin the framework of a consortium of CSOs led by ERIM (France) in partnership with Human Rights House Foundation, Human Rights House — Tbilisi, and The Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, and financed by the European Union (European Union in Ukraine).

Stay tuned with the OPIR special project via www.opir.weareukraine.info and on the pages of We Are Ukraine on Instagram and LinkedIn.

‘We Are Ukraine’ (WAU) is an English-language repository of truth about Ukraine and its contribution to the defense of freedom and lasting peace in the world. It is an information platform that contains easy-to-share visual materials with facts, statements, news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, explanatory materials about Ukraine’s history and culture, its impact on the global economy and the resilience of society. ‘We are Ukraine’ project is created by the team of the One Philosophy consulting group and IT-company Empat supported by volunteers.