‘Russia stole our history’: Ukraine’s bitter struggle to keep memory alive

Beyond the frontlines, academics are fighting to counter the fake tales of their country's past that are peddled by the Kremlin

At the entrance to Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, a bronze relief of the face of Mykhailo Hrushevsky stares out towards the red-painted portico. A historian by training, and a key figure in Ukraine's national revival in the early 20th century, Hrushevsky served briefly as the head of Ukraine's revolutionary rada - or parliament - in 1918.

Taras Pshenychnyi, deputy dean of the history department, pauses to examine the image of his distinguished forebear, and to reflect on the extraordinary times the university is seeing since the Russian invasion.