14 March 2025
Lara Marlowe: Ukraine’s Quest to Join the West
Tugann Coláiste na nEalaíon agus na nDaonnachtaí UCD cuireadh croíúil duit, i gcomhpháirt le Scoil na dTeanagcha, na gCultúr agus na Teangeolaíochta UCD, freastal ar Léacht Bhliantúil an Choláiste.
The UCD College of Arts and Humanities, in partnership with the UCD School of Languages Cultures and Linguistics, cordially invite you to the Annual College Lecture.
Lara Marlowe will deliver a personal assessment of Ukraine’s frustrated quest to join the West and its chances of survival as a sovereign and independent nation.
Ukraine has European roots stretching back to the Middle Ages, but Ukrainians say their country was hijacked by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union for the last 300 years.
“Get Away from Moscow! Onward to Europe,” was the slogan of the Executed Renaissance, a generation of writers and artists wiped out by Stalin in the 1930s. The same slogan was taken up by demonstrators on the Maidan in 2013/14 when the Revolution of Dignity drove Viktor Yanukovich, a puppet of Vladimir Putin, from office. Putin fought back, seizing Crimea and much of Donbas and starting a deadly war now entering its 12th year.
Europe and the US extended repeated invitations to Ukraine to join the EU and NATO but always refused to set a target date for accession. In February, US President Donald Trump betrayed more than three decades of western promises when he adopted Putin’s rhetoric to announce that Ukraine will not be allowed to join NATO. There is the tiniest hope that Europe may come to Ukraine’s rescue.
Reserve your place via (opens in a new window)Eventbrite.
You can hear Lara in conversation on NewsTalk (opens in a new window)here.
Biography
Lara Marlowe was born in California and studied French at UCLA and the Sorbonne, then International Relations at Oxford. She started her career as an associate producer with CBS’s 60 Minutes programme, then moved to print media with the Financial Times and TIME Magazine. She was a staff foreign correspondent, based in Paris and Washington, for The Irish Times from 1996 until 2023.
Marlowe has reported on more than a dozen wars and has won four press awards. She completed three long reporting stints in Ukraine in 2022 and 2023 and continues to write a column for The Irish Times. Marlowe makes her permanent home in Paris, where she has covered five French presidents. She became a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2006 for her contribution to Franco-Irish relations.