Women’s participation in Ukraine’s Euromaidan- A Conversation with Olena Nikolayenko

What counts as “real” participation in a revolution? To what extent does gender in a revolution nowadays? What are the outcomes of mass mobilization? How do Ukrainian women participate in a revolution? In our podcast, we attemptto find an answer to these questions with Olena Nikolayenko around her latest book, Invisible Revolutionaries: Women’sParticipation 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 distinguishesbetween three models of participation: patriarchal, emancipatory, and hybrid.

The methodology received a particular focus in our conversation. The Ukrainian Euromaidan was accuratelydocumented 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 duringrevolutions, 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 andnonviolence, and how nonviolent resistance participation influences subsequent engagement in armed conflict. The question of how women's activism evolves fromcultural and civic resistance to armed defense of national identity remains particularly relevant given Ukraine's ongoing struggle.