"There was a terrible feeling of continuity, heading into Ukraine right now for this purpose. An‑sky was desperate to save all that was strange and beautiful about his people; Ukrainians have been dying for four years by the tens of thousands for largely the same reason. They are fighting to preserve their autonomy, which includes the uniqueness of their national and cultural identity—a front line that An‑sky would recognize. As he began his expedition at the end of June 1912, An‑sky wrote a letter to Gintsburg, his benefactor, in which he felt compelled to spill out his feelings: “I am very nervous, as if standing before the great unknown. How will this all turn out?” Would these villagers regard him as an interloper, or one of their own? “And yet, at the same time, I have a great feeling of joy in my soul, that the most treasured dream of my life is beginning to come to fruition.” ...“With every old man who dies, with every small-town fire, with every exile, a piece of our past is lost, and the most beautiful expressions of traditional life, with its customs, traditions, and beliefs, disappear,” An‑sky wrote in the foreword to his questionnaire. When I mentioned this parallel to her, @ukr_arthistory stopped walking and looked at me intensely. “When I was young, it shocked me whenever I thought about the Jews who once lived here,” she said. “The idea that a whole people could just disappear. Could a people just disappear?” powerful, moving dispatch by @galbeckerman from Ukraine, tracing never-ending cycles of imperial erasure. one of the best things i have read in a long while.