One of her important observations is made on a trip to Rakhiv, a town located between the beautiful mountains of western Ukraine: “Many of its inhabitants spoke three or more languages,” Pinkham writes of Rakhiv. In a manner that seems effortless but involves a lot of research, Pinkham explains competing historical narratives and clashing interests that have factored into Ukraine’s current predicaments: dependence on foreign money, the loss of Crimea and a shadow war with rebels and Russian volunteers and regulars in the east of the country. Pinkham explains competing historical narratives and clashing interests that have factored into Ukraine’s current predicaments: dependence on foreign money, the loss of Crimea and a shadow war War and politics, however, dictate that such choices are no longer neutral - a shame for those of us who, like Pinkham, remember a more peaceful and occasionally even hopeful time. As a native of the city, I tend to use both spellings interchangeably and get angry when anyone tells me to stick to one version.
Take the fact that Pinkham spells the Ukrainian capital’s name as “Kiev”, the more commonly accepted and Russian-sounding spelling, whereas this publication’s style guide demands the Ukrainian-sounding “Kyiv”. It’s not just lands that are contested in Ukraine nowadays. From this mosaic of lives a disturbing portrait of Ukraine’s political and social fracturing eventually emerges. The “quiet depths” here are the casual stories featuring everyone from musicians who sleep on the floor in Pinkham’s apartment to earnest and not-so-earnest harm reduction NGO workers. There is a saying in Russian, “It is the quiet depths that hold the devils.” As a writer, Pinkham, who first came to the post-Soviet world as a Red Cross volunteer and went on to write about the region for the New York Timesand the London Review of Books, illustrates this saying well. Pinkham’s calm, wry tone stays consistent throughout, even while she describes Ukraine’s 2014 revolution and the war in the east of the country that erupted later that year. That isn’t to say that the book, which interweaves analysis of modern history with intimate portraits of contemporary Ukrainians (and some Russians), ups the drama quotient halfway through.
Sophie Pinkham’s Black Square starts out seeming like a slow and leisurely book - until it causes you to have a crying fit in a fast food place selling chebureki at 1am. Kyiv, March 2014: Sophie Pinkham's new book on Ukraine retells the events of the past three years from the ground up.
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