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The Ukraine List (UKL) was created in October 1998 by Dominique Arel, then an Assistant Professor (Research) at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island, US). UKL was initially modeled on Johnson’s Russia List (JRL), in presenting a periodic compilation of news items, culled from the internet, and postings, submitted by list subscribers, in this case pertaining to Ukraine. The list’s initial aim was to create a virtual sense of community among the growing number of scholars, worldwide, interested in contemporary Ukraine. It also made some inroads among Ukrainian diaspora communities and government/NGO circles. Working on a volunteer basis, Dominique Arel managed to send a weekly issue, on average, with some hiatuses related to his other commitments.

The Gongadze and Kuchmagate crises, in Fall 2000/Spring 2001, created a surge of interest in Ukraine matters and the number of subscribers grew to achieve a plateau that remained relatively stable in the next three years.

The Orange Revolution changed everything. The mass mobilization on the Maidan generated intense interest from circles far beyond the Ukrainian studies and diaspora communities. Responding instantly to this extraordinary situation, UKL began coming out up to three to four times a day for forty consecutive days. In addition to providing a selection of the best news items, UKL transformed itself into a daily forum for exclusive contributions, and began offering translations from printed or web-only newspapers available in languages other than English (Ukrainian, Russian, French, German and Polish). Partner institutions in Ukrainian studies (the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and the Kennan Institute, which has a Kyiv office) graciously made a financial contribution to help UKL develop the translation project. A selection of the best items from UKL will soon be made available on the Chair web site.

The Chair developed a network of a dozen students, on nine different campuses and cities of North America and Europe, to make UKL answer the “revolutionary” needs of the moment. Four students have stayed on as ongoing UKL assistants: Yulia Yarotska, a Law School Student at University of Ottawa, who has been with the Chair for more than one year as a student assistant; Natalia Patsiurko, a Graduate Student in Sociology at McGill University, who is assisting the Chair with statistical analysis of the electoral results; Olga Bogatyrenko, a Graduate Student in Political Science at the University of California, Davis, currently in Washington, DC, and the primary translator of Ukrainian-language and Russian-language items for UKL; and Lisa Koriouchkina, a Graduate Student in Anthropology at Brown University, a longtime research assistant for the Chair on the Census and Identity Project, who prepared annotated summaries of the Russian press on Ukraine for UKL. The dedication of these students at the height of Orange was oustanding.

With the Orange Revolution, the UKL subscription base has skyrocketed, not just in absolute figures, but also in the number of critical circles that it now reaches. Government/NGO officials around the world, international correspondents and scholars from Russian and post-Soviet studies, in addition to a constantly increasing list increasing list of new subscribers in Ukraine and the diaspora, are among the communities that have developed an abiding interest in Ukraine. By offering, on a regular basis, information that is either not readily available, or exclusive to the list, UKL acts as the the forum where people can turn to in order to help them understand the complex political, economic, social, and identity issues that Ukraine is facing. UKL has become the calling card of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies.

For a free subscription, please send an email to Dominique Arel at darel@uottawa.ca.

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