What counts as “real” participation in a revolution? To what extent does gender matter in a revolution nowadays? What are the outcomes of mass mobilization? How do Ukrainian women participate in a revolution? In our podcast, we attempt to find an answer to these questions with Olena Nikolayenko around her latest book, Invisible Revolutionaries: Women’s Participation in Ukraine’s Euromaidan. Published in April 2025 by Cambridge University Press, her research focuses on the women’s participation in the Ukrainian Euromaidan.
In the podcast, Olena Nikolayenko places women’s protest within a broader framework, which includes the Arab Spring and Belarus. Her claim is that age, class, region and political experience shape women’s forms of engagement. Based on these observation, Invisible Revolutionaries distinguishes between three models of participation: patriarchal, emancipatory, and hybrid.
The methodology received a particular focus in our conversation. The Ukrainian Euromaidan was accurately documented through multiple projects, such as the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance’s Maidan: Oral History and Maidan.Testimonies. As art is equally a key component during revolutions, Olena Nikolayenko presents the main artistic projects of the Revolution of Dignity.
Olena Nikolayenko claims that Euromaidan is not a singular moment in history. Instead, it belongs within the Ukrainian’s longer history of women’s activism, which starts from the 1917-1921 Ukrainian revolution to Orange Revolution. However, this legacy remained largely invisible in the English-language historiography.
In this context, the conversation ends by emphasizing possible avenues. Researchers dealing with this topic should investigate the relationship between gender and nonviolence, and how nonviolent resistance participation influences subsequent engagement in armed conflict. The question of how women’s activism evolves from cultural and civic resistance to armed defense of national identity remains particularly relevant given Ukraine’s ongoing struggle.
Olena Nikolayenko is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Fordham University. She defended her PhD at the University of Toronto in 2007 and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University. Her research interests focus on contentious politics, social movements, civil resistance, comparative democratization, political behaviour, with a regional focus on Eastern Europe.
The interview was conducted by Adrian Matus. Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio file.
