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Anne Applebaum Held a Public Lecture at NaUKMA

Ann Elizabeth Applebaum, an American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, widely known for her works on civil society development in Eastern and Central Europe, an Editor at the Economist and a member of the Washington Post editorial board, on February 7 visited National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and delivered a lecture “Actual believers: collaboration and opposition under the totalitarian regimes”.

 

The lecture was based on Ann  Applebaum’s book “Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956”. Speaker stated that the Communist Party in USSR was in charge for almost the whole twentieth century, and it caused harm to everyone by its authoritarian machine and ideology, although not everyone was acknowledged with this fact. The writer emphasised that people in Ukraine at that time lived in constant fear, but were afraid to change anything. Finally, the sharp difference between ideology and reality pushed those not willing to suffer further oppression to act. Ms. Applebaum concluded that “if the state takes over all the aspects of public life, people will inevitably search for all the ways available for them to reach out for any sort of independence in their social life, freedom of expression in arts and everyday life” and that “people will try not only to talk but to act as well”.

 

The meeting was a part of a forum organized by U.S. Ambassador John F. Tefft that includes public speeches and lectures by American scholars & public figures. 

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