Winter on Fire

Reading today's assignment on documentaries reminded me of one of my favorite documentary films, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom. This film documents the Maidan Revolution that took place in Ukraine a few years ago. Having grown up in Ukraine I feel a strong connection to it, and despite being an American citizen, I consider Ukraine to be my country as well. This documentary shows the Ukrainian citizen's side of one of they key points in Eastern European politics within the last 3 to 4 years, and it does so quite well, in my opinion.

Now, granted, the film is biased. It glosses over the West's involvement, and downplays involvement of far-right nationalist groups, while emphasizing more patriotic and innocent Ukrainian citizens taking part in it. Despite these shortcomings, however, I believe that it still has merit. Many people in the U.S. have a very limited knowledge of events in Ukraine, if any, and the fact that this is on Netflix is a great way to get people thinking and talking about it.

Obviously the country is split, both literally and figuratively, and Winter on Fire shows mostly only one side of things. I believe, however, that this is important, because Ukraine has long been under Russia's shadow, the same as many other Eastern European countries. A resurgence of national pride in their country and culture is something necessary if  the Ukrainian people are going to be able to establish their own individual identity apart from Russia. This is, of course, if Russia doesn't move in and "annex" the rest of Ukraine in the same way he took Crimea.