Priests and Protests: Looking Back on the Photography from Kiev Square

Last week, this photo, “Priests and Protests,” won an Award of Excellence in the General News category of the Picture of the Year, International (POYi) awards. It was taken during the uprising in Ukraine’s Independence Square a year ago January.

Issues of identity, religion and territory ran through almost every published image. Protestors armed themselves against government forces with whatever was available to them, creating a visual mash of color and symbolism, the clergy ministering throughout. This video from the BagNewsSalon on the uprising addresses the same setting, and more, from this distinguished political and visual event:

Photographs by Valentyn Ogirenko, Anatolii Boiko, Evgeny Feldman, Sergey Dolzhenko and Rob Stothard capture the spirit, force and perseverance of the Maidan protestors. David Campbell, Donald Weber, Patrick Whalen and Ekaterina Haskins discuss the grass-roots tactics used by Kiev’s protestors with BagNews moderator, Cara Finnegan.

(photo: withheld until POYi awards are officially confirmed. caption: In this photo taken on Friday, Jan. 24, 2014, Orthodox priests pray as they stand between pro-European Union activists and police lines in central Kiev, Ukraine. As a barricade of blazing tires belched thick black smoke, a line of priests stood between angry protesters and ominous riot police. Every freezing morning, priests sing prayers to demonstrators gathered on the Ukrainian capital’s main square, a solemn and soothing interlude to vehement speeches calling for revolution.)