What a front line rock gig tells us about Ukraine society

Ukraine’s shift is a reminder that national cultures are never static or sealed off from the outside world. It will be interesting to see whether the country’s slow embrace of civil society will push out some of the unattractive features of its past, such as corruption. Its progress could yet offer hope to nations struggling to overcome dark and traumatic pasts. “Freedom is not something automatically [found] in the Ukrainian DNA. It came from [events],” said Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Ukrainian journalist. “This has a good message for other countries in nondemocratic places – it shows that even where there is no democracy in that history, you can build a democratic society [in the future].”

Read the full story in Financial Times here.