Good morning. We'll start our live blog today with a hat tip to Ian Bateson, who wrote a nice piece for Al-Jazeera over the weekend about various efforts to preserve the history of the Maidan for future generations:
Tatiana Kovtunovich and Ivanna Kobielieva both work on the Maidan Oral History project based at the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, originally established after the Orange Revolution to catalogue the abuses of the Soviet period.
So far they have collected 143 audio interviews and 74 video interviews. They started doing interviews on the Maidan in March with dictaphones and smartphones but since the protest camp was shut down over the summer they have focused on inviting people to do video interviews.
"We aren't strict. People can say whatever they want. We just want them to feel comfortable so they can remember everything they can," says Tatiana, adding that they try and walk people through the main events.
In many ways Tatiana and Ivanna represent the inclusive kind of Ukrainian identity supported during the Maidan. Tatiana is a Russian speaker and Ivanna is a Ukrainian speaker with each speaking in her language of choice but understanding the other.
"It is the first time Ukrainianness isn't just for ethnic Ukrainians. That is very important in a post-totalitarian society," says Ivanna.
What is important as well is that Maidan is not just understood as a physical space. They give the example of a young student in the western Ukrainian city of Drohobych who didn't go to Kiev, but was active in their local protest in solidarity with Maidan. She was there every day telling people what was happening in Kiev and collecting supplies to send to the protesters there.
Read the entire article here
Barring any major developments, that concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Sunday, November 30. Check back here in the morning for our continuing coverage.