Events with live streams from u. S. Congress, white house events, the court, campaigns and more from the world of politics. All at your fingertips. Also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and find scheduling information for cspan tv networks and cspan radio. Plus a variety of compelling podcasts. Cspan now available at the apple store and google play. Downloaded for free today. Cspan now. Your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. Americans can see democracy at work. Citizens truly influence why the public thrives. Get informed straight from the sources on cspan unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. From the Nations Capital to wherever you are. Getting the opinion that matters the most. This is whatgo democracy looks like. Cspan, powered by cable. Good evening, everyone. My name is jasmine. I am so excited to welcome you to our event with megan presenting her new book. A family. Story of exile and returned. Join in conversation. Our springs unseasoned . You can find our full Event Schedule online and you can also for our email newsletter. Tonights event will conclude with questions after which are here at this table. Tasker question just raise your hand during the q a portion and the speaker will come to you. Cspan book tv also filming our event tonight including the q a. If you ask a question way for the microphone to reach you before you ask a question. If you have not already you can find a copy of the register the next room. Thank you for continuing to keep our communities safe. Just a reminder to please silence your cell phone for the duration of this event. As always, thank you for buying books from the bookstore. Your purchase helps to ensure the future of this local independent bookstore. Now, i am so pleased to introduce tonight speakers. A nonfiction writer who has contributed to the New York Times book review, atlantic new republic and all things considered. She is a u brightit fellow and e has been studying and writing about the country for two decades. She is joined in conversation by emily justice. Director of the contemporary program at the Ukrainian Research institute at harvard university. She has been doing training since 2012. And is the author of without mistakes. Political activism in ukraine. Tonight we are here to discuss ukraine is not dead yet. A family story of exile and returned. This work, megan must return to her familys homeland in ukraine to uncover and document her familys past. Author hilton writes that ukraine is not dead yet. A model both the power and purpose. A collective understanding of the past while driving the knowledge of ourselves and our future. We are so excited to host this event tonight. Please join me in welcoming megan and emily. [cheering and applause] thank you so much for having me here. Very exciting toe be back in boston. I will begin with a reading from the text. I will actually start from the epilogue which is sort of a strange thing to read from at a book launch. Im very conscious of the fact that we are now at the moment where we are recognizing and remembering the anniversary of innovation of ukraine. Most of itut sticking before the draft ahi few days before the invasion started. When i was doing the writing are really thought about the things i was writing about as things that happen in the past. Things that were settled and fascinating to me in part because they just needed their distance. The events of the past year was showing that that is not the way to think about it. The acknowledgment off that moment i want to read this portion which has to do with the state ofkn my cousin, natalia. I dont think there is much you need to know to feel anchored in this section except for that we are First Cousins and we have the same grandmother. So, two months after the war began i s flew to italy to see y cousin natalia who had left ukraine with her to aunts adolescent daughters. On many accounts they were lucky they went to italy because at a family connection. The mother of natalias husbandt had moved to the country move to a nice hellion man. As soon as the war broke out the inlaws urged her to bring the girls the city in western ukraine where they lived in come live with them in a town outside bologna. A. A board one of the rails, they were at the station to greet me. There was no greater marker than the passage of time who at 14 was a foot taller than when id last seen her a few years earlier. The town we were staying in had typical italian farm. Lush flowers tumbling fromad hanging baskets. As we walk from the train station it was ukraine that loomed. I knew theirin departure but had not botheredir them for details. As we settled into the apartment on a Central Street she told me the full story. Like most ukrainians, they had considered a russian invasion unthinkable. When it happened, working a trucking gig, a man and his job rushed back to his family. He urged natalia to leave ukraine with the girls. That that point martial law had been imposed in the man had to start leaving the country. She was a patriot and had no desire to abandon her homeland in a time of need. She did not want to be separated because he was over 18 was also required to remain in ukraine. Natalias mother, my aunt had turned 80 the previous mother and like many old people refused to leave. She knew the environment was unpredictable and even in western ukraine possibly dangerous. It was not a good place for kids the first weekend after the invasion natalia agreed to check out the situation at the train station. The travel hub closest to their home. By then it had been widely reported that the station was overrun by refugees. She suspected they would not be able to board a train would just come back. So she and the girls packed small backpacks with food in their documents knowing that peapod been standing in closely packed quarters for hours to board trains. When natalia andnd the girls arrived at the station it was full of people trying to flee. They got in a Side Entrance that allowed them to a pass the bulkf the crowds. They ran towards a group of men who were knocking on the door of a train about to depart. Turned away and then the family enremained on the platform. The door opened and natalia and the girls were pulled aboard. Within moments of them stepping on the train, the door closed behind them in the wheel started to turn. They had made it. They barely had a chance to say goodbye. The train was moving, but going where . This was a question she focused on. None of the people around them had an idea. All of them knew was that the train was c going west. Eventually she found a conductor where areon we going she asked m the conductor answered unhelpfully, he didnt seem to know any more than the others. In comparison to many others, natalia andin the girl traveled. Only six people in their car sat for. Mally when they cross a border into poland, volunteers came aboard the train and offered them medication, food, water ent. Twenty hours after they left they got off the train somewhere in southeastern poland. Natalia hurried the girls to a waiting taxi. On her phone natalia found a flight leaving in a few hours. When she tried to buy the tickets a transaction would not go through perhaps because of Cyber Attacks on ukrainian banks when she told me this part of the story, i thought of our grandmothers moments of panic when she had to make sense of new yorks multiple airports the moment she arrived with my mom from the soviet union. Fiftysix years later here with her granddaughter almost momentarily at an airport in a foreign country with her two youngest children trying to outrun moscows reach. As natalia considered what to do , her phone rang. A ukrainian that happened to live near told him what was going on. A friend offered to buy the ticket. She sent photos of the documents in the transaction went through. By 8 00 p. M. , hours after they left, they arrived at the home outside and started a chapter of their lives. In peaceful italy, natalia and the girls were in the habit of counting their blessings. Unlike so manyth ukrainian refugees, that a place where they could stay indefinitely in an area familiar to them. They have the means to cover their modest expenses. The girls had plenty of experience with distance education after the covid pandemic. They resumed all my lessons at their school. They even have their most needed belongings. Busloads had started transporting luggage from ukraine to italy. They had sent them suitcases packed with items they were not able to bring with them when they left. It wasr. A delight to be with tm i was grateful after so much time apart. We couldnt joy each day together. We went to Different Grocery Stores to pick out provisions for dinner. I was beaten several times and chest. The evenings they watched songs in i ukrainian. Sadness hung in the air. One day walking me through some recent photos on her phone. It showed roman on his motorcycle, the girls doing yoga stretches on a beach. The family gathered for olga as 13th birthday. Natalia played a video unwrapping her mainic present, a guitar. I carry the voices of my loved ones in the background. Ellen coley. Because covid had been so long since id seen them. I knew we would meet again. It seemed impossible that our future gatherings would ever be so carefree. Its nice the phone reminds me of these moments. A moment later she also added, but hard. Before it gone to italy id gone back toin cleveland and picked p a lock of my grandmothers. Simple, but pretty. Plated and rose gold. My grandmother andwi purchase it in the soviet union. Trying to spend down her spare rubles before shemo flew with my mom and olga out to the united states. She had worn it all the time and i thought natalia may like to have it. I gave it to her one afternoon after we finished lunch. Is thiss our grandmother she askedd. I nodded. She immediately started to cry. I went over and put my arms around her. I said you can have a part of her with you now, i said. Some of her strength. I dont know how she did it. I looked across the Kitchen Table whose facesch had grown stronger. For a moment i mentioned being joined byde my grandmother in ts little italian kitchen. What would she have made us, i wonder. The hardship destruction and violence which you have endured. The answer came to me immediately. It was simple. Live. [applause] thank you. Thank you for being here. A weekai that is so important to any of us who have been paying attention. Thank you, also, that passage is really reflective of how the book brings the past and present in a really important conversation. My questions are oriented towards our pastt and present. First, lets start, for people that have not read the book or dont know that much about ukraine, can you describe a little bit about the drawl of ukraine. Its funny read that particular passage. A small town in western ukraine. Famous for this really disgusting. One of my Favorite Places in ukraine. I have been there i think five times. That question, i prepared the question without sort of thinking about that. That sort of made me smile when you are reading that passage. Four people thatbi dont have family some of the things that got me to ukraine are different than what set me back. I was very close to my grandmother who was kind of like a third parent in some respects to me and my younger brother growing up. Sort of observed all the traditional ukrainian holidays. We went to church all the time. Different ukrainian customs. It was really part of the fabric of my life growing up. Also, my grandmother was a curious presence to me. She was very kind of understandable in a way in a sense she was very responsible, very reliable, very loving. All the ways you could expect of a grandmother. She also had a sense of tragedy. There was something about her that was clearly she had had a really difficult earlyly life ad that came out through things like her starting to cry when she talked about her growing up in ukraine or russia or she was always sort of so attentive to how much things cost. Even now when im at the grocery store, oh, groceries, strawberries, 275 now. She was always cooking with Copious Amounts of food. An american growing up in the middle class. There was also this mystery wrapped up into who she was. Another thing that was interesting was that we had a very close family and ukraine. My mom, one of her sisters, natalia, her mother, had been left behind in ukraine. My grandfather was still there. There was a sense, too, a closeness, that could not really be explained very easily. Sometimes my mom would often, my grandmother would send packages over and my mom would go collect our clothing every so often. Things we were not wearing anymore that we had outgrown and we would send them to ukraine. A year or so later well be at my grandmothers house and we would be trying to do something and i would come across of a photograph of my second conditt second cousin where my clothing and they look like me. Look sort of like me, but not. It was a really rich set of questions, i think. Going to ukraine in the first place when i was in college. When i went there, i quickly realized just how fascinating of a place it was. Trying to sort of make sense of itself in the aftermath of the failure of the soviet project and all of the countries of the soviet union have such Big Questions facing themselves. Ukraine is the home of so many conflicts around language, around history, geopolitics and those questions and those conflicts are very high stake. People are really engaged in trying to represent their positions and, so, for me, as an american, it was so interesting to be able to go there and to start to learn based on the unfolding in ukraine. The other thing that i would say is ukraine has such a deep, rich culture and history. The thing you mentioned about the trip, there is just so much there. It is a big country with its own current ocular, its own history, its own culture. You know, once you start paying attention, there is so much i can be unfolded. That is why you should care about ukraine. Excellent. It leads into my next question. How you found theit story. This is a story not only about megans family, but also finding out more about the family that is not just in family war and placing it in ukrainian history. How did you come to put the pieces together the Family History and, especially, talkig about a long period of time working in ukraine and you talk in the book about the experience of the archive itself, i think that is really interesting to hear more about. What are the things that made you want to keep digging for details . Especially when you started to find out there may be details you will not like about your family. Were there any specific questions that ultimately you never found answers to . Okay. Remind me if i dont answer one of the questions. So, the abatis for this book, you know,w, i inserted going to ukraine when i was in college. I was really interested. I did not start this project specifically until my grandmother died 10 years ago. I interviewed with her. I wanted to document her story and really preserve it. That sort of quickly ballooned into a very ambitious project which ended consulting across multiple countries and doing a lot of secondary source reading which wasoo really super, super important in this book. It contains some of the scholarship that i used two kind of try to imagine what the world had been like that my grandmother had lived in. Theres just so much great. I want to make sure im calling out those people. I absolutely would not have been do this without some of that work. Doing interviews with people, people that it known my grandmother when she was younger people that knew the general environment. The archive was incredibly rich. I think, the archives and ukraine were particularly simportant and they tell an interesting story. I started at a t fortuitous fortuitous t time. It was stuff contained in a case file held by the secret police what is known as the kgb in the united states. It goes by a couple of other names now and in the past. But, until about the mid 2010, it was really difficult to get access to those archives. Particularly if youre just an interested member of the public. You could do it, but it is tough but, after the revolution in 2014 there became a vested interest in trying to make those archives as accessible as possible. It basically became like us in 2015, send an email. You have anything on those sources. Just getting that information. Applying in a very reasonable amount of time. Usually like two weeks and then they let you know what they found. Within a month they would send your file. I think its one or two months. Really predictable. Always super attentive. Clear. And much better, i would say, there my experience working with American Archives. No idea where it went, never heard back. I did get some great stuff from American Archives as well. I ended up getting some secret Police Archives all my family which was super, super interesting. Interrogations of people. Trial documents. Biographical statements. It is really interesting what those files contain. Yet the take it with a grain of salt. But, it is also a remarkable record of that time and what people were experiencing and so i found all of that to be very interesting. Also, sometimes very difficult, to your question. I did find a lot of, you know, world warkn ii and ukraine was extremely, extremely difficult, devastating. Probably the most devastated countries in world warar ii. You know, the reason that my grandmother was firston occupied by the soviet union the nazi germany and then the soviet union again. Active Ukrainian National movement. It was really, really bloodied and no one was spared. And, so, i was doing this archival work. Across thehe foundation that showed members of my family were interested in atrocities one could say. Both at a political level but also at a personal level, to be honest. And that is like a little bit of a more sort of difficult thing to describe. We can talk a little bit more about that. Were there any other questions i did not answer . Lets jump to the question of inheritance. When you start to learn some of these details, like you mentioned, these crimes things that we would categorize as war crimes on behalf of the nationalist movement. Sort of a very nuanced discussion. Citing academic forces about these topics. I think this contextualizes them very well. The other part is the inheritance that you talk about throughout the book. Physical resemblance. Aneurysm spirit inherited names. How do t you sort of reckon that inheritance that you have, the thing that draws you to ukraine in the first place with finding out about some of these really painful details and at any point did you kind of question your conne