Several made it to Moldova or Poland with their families. Some are still in Kyiv, especially men over eighteen, who aren’t allowed to leave. Sophie Pinkham: Yes, fortunately all my friends in Ukraine are fine so far-or rather, as fine as you can be when your country is being invaded and bombed. Lucy Jakub: First-are your friends in Ukraine okay? Who are you in touch with? This week, over e-mail, she shared what she’s been seeing and hearing of the war in Ukraine from her perch in Ithaca, and told me about her next book project, a cultural history of Russia’s forests. As an American observer, Pinkham has a sharp eye for the surreal and telling details of post-Soviet politics and culture-as she puts it, the “heavy-handed postmodern novel” that is history unfolding in Eastern Europe.
In 2019 she profiled Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his sitcom-cum-service career. Over the past three years she has become a frequent voice in the Review, writing on history and politics in Russia and Ukraine, and on literature and art under autocracy. In 2008 she moved to Ukraine, and after the Maidan revolution in 2013–2014 wrote Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine, a work of memoir and social reportage that offers an arresting portrait of the country’s cultural identity and political upheaval. Pinkham first visited Russia as a volunteer for the Red Cross, just out of college.
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