Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing From Ukraine

Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing From Ukraine
Author: Kateryna Kazimirova
Publisher: 8th & Atlas Publishing
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1737718170

Award-winning Ukrainian Writers featured in this riveting and evocative collection of prose, poetry, essays, and photos. Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing From Ukraine is a collection of Ukrainian writing that aims to introduce the English-speaking world to some of the most iconic living writers whose work is shaping contemporary Ukraine. These are leading intellectuals and moral authorities for the Ukrainian people, whose voices and opinions have helped to synchronize the internal compasses of Ukrainian society in the struggle for the freedom of their country. Through poetry, short stories, and essays, this collection demonstrates that the desire for freedom and the struggle to achieve it is a theme that cuts across generations of Ukrainian writers, and is a central preoccupation of Ukrainian society. This collection demonstrates the unique style and artistry of contemporary Ukrainian literature over the past 50 years. The curated poetry is an instant reaction to the events taking place today, which speaks directly to this current moment and the national psyche. The short stories sensitize readers to Ukraine’s indivisible history and the present. These are accounts about the memory of generations, choices and transitions, self-irony, friendship, love, and the powerful significance of home. These stories and novellas represent a single continuous story showing the paths, lives, and values of the Ukrainian people who have amazed the world with their courage. The essays showcase the voices of contemporary Ukrainian intellectuals, providing analysis and reflection on what is happening in the present, showing historical connections and parallels, and shedding light on the origins and triggers of the war on a mental level. The collection that follows is the story of Ukraine, in the voice of Ukrainians. Proceeds from the sale of this collection will support the cultural community and humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. “This superb anthology of Ukrainian writers delights us with talented writing across all genres and brings home what it means to be a Ukrainian on the frontlines of freedom. This rich offering helps every American better understand Ukraine: the people, the culture, and the country.” – Marie Yovanovitch, author of an instant New York Times bestseller Lessons From The Edge: A Memoir; Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine “Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing from Ukraine is a brilliant introduction to a literary tradition long overlooked in America. By presenting a mosaic of perspectives, experiences, and forms, this volume showcases the depth, diversity, and resistance of the culture Putin seeks to erase. It’s hard to imagine a more politically urgent literary project.” – Anthony Marra, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tsar of Love and Techno and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena “Defending Ukraine is not just the job of soldiers on the frontline. Writers, poets, publishers and artists also have their job to do and so this book is the right one at the right time. The more people abroad know Ukraine and understand it, the more they will understand why we need to stand in solidarity with it and with its people.” – Tim Judah, British writer, reporter and political analyst for The Economist

Ukrainian New Drama after the Euromaidan Revolution

Ukrainian New Drama after the Euromaidan Revolution
Author: Natalka Vorozhbyt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2023-09-07
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350335932

Ukraine's remarkable aptitude for resilience and grassroots activism, as witnessed since February 2022, is closely connected to a process that began with the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013-14, when over two million Ukrainians took to the streets in defense of democracy and human rights. In the months directly following the Revolution, Russia illegally occupied Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, and began funneling both arms and troops into the eastern region of Donbas to fuel a conflict between the Ukrainian army and a small group of radical separatists. Since that time, Ukrainians have been working diligently to build the society in which they have wanted to live, all while fighting Russia and its proxies in Europe's forgotten war. Ukrainian New Drama After the Euromaidan Revolution brings together key works from the country's impressively generative post-Revolutionary period, many of them published here in English for the first time. As well as established voices from the European theatre repertoire such as Natalka Vorozhbyt and Maksym Kurochkin, this collection also features iconic plays from Ukraine's post-Maidan generation of playwrights Natalka Blok, Andrii Bondarenko, Anastsiia Kosodii, Lena Lagushonkova, Olha Matsiupa, and Kateryna Penkova. Considered together, these plays reflect the diversity of voices in Ukraine as a country seeking to comprehend both the personal and political consequences of the Revolution, the war, and all that has come since. A key element to the remarkable culture of defiance and resistance that Ukrainians created in these years has been new approaches to arts activism, particularly in the performing arts. In the eight years between Euromaidan and the full-scale invasion, Ukraine witnessed an incredible boom in socially engaged performance practice. Playwriting in particular has become an essential genre through which artists have sought to bear witness to the repercussions of the war and to create spaces for the reclaiming of historical and cultural narratives; Ukrainian New Drama After the Euromaidan Revolution captures this spirit and published this necessary and vital work in English for the very first time.

From Three Worlds

From Three Worlds
Author: Ed Hogan
Publisher: Zephyr Press (MA)
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1996
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Anthology of contemporary Ukrainian literature in English translation.

Contemporary Ukraine on the Cultural Map of Europe

Contemporary Ukraine on the Cultural Map of Europe
Author: Larissa M. L. Zaleska Onyshkevych
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2014-12-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317473787

The concept of a 'return to Europe' has been integral to the movement for Ukrainian national rebirth since the nineteenth century. While the goal of a more fully reformed politics remains elusive, numerous expressions of Ukrainian culture continue to develop in the European spirit. This wide-ranging book explores Ukraine's European cultural connection, especially as it has been reestablished since the country achieved independence in 1991. The contributors discusses many aspects of Ukraine's contemporary culture - history, politics, and religion in Part I; literary culture in Part II; and language, popular culture, and the arts in Part III. What emerges is a fascinating picture of a young country grappling with its divided past and its colonial heritage, yet asserting its voice and preferences amid the diverse and at times conflicting realities of the contemporary political scene. Europe becomes a powerful point of reference, a measure against which the situation in post-independence Ukraine is gouged and debated. This framework allows for a better understanding of the complexities deeply ingrained in the social fabric of Ukrainian society.

In Wartime

In Wartime
Author: Tim Judah
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2016-10-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0451495497

From one of the finest journalists of our time comes a definitive, boots-on-the-ground dispatch from the front lines of the conflict in Ukraine. “Essential for anyone who wants to understand events in Ukraine and what they portend for the West.”—The Wall Street Journal Ever since Ukraine’s violent 2014 revolution, followed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the country has been at war. Misinformation reigns, more than two million people have been displaced, and Ukrainians fight one another on a second front—the crucial war against corruption. With In Wartime, Tim Judah lays bare the events that have turned neighbors against one another and mired Europe’s second-largest country in a conflict seemingly without end. In Lviv, Ukraine’s western cultural capital, mothers tend the graves of sons killed on the other side of the country. On the Maidan, the square where the protests that deposed President Yanukovych began, pamphleteers, recruiters, buskers, and mascots compete for attention. In Donetsk, civilians who cheered Russia’s President Vladimir Putin find their hopes crushed as they realize they have been trapped in the twilight zone of a frozen conflict. Judah talks to everyone from politicians to poets, pensioners, and historians. Listening to their clashing explanations, he interweaves their stories to create a sweeping, tragic portrait of a country fighting a war of independence from Russia—twenty-five years after the collapse of the USSR.

Igniting Liberty: Voices for Freedom Around the World

Igniting Liberty: Voices for Freedom Around the World
Author: Jake Dorsch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2019-02-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781793165039

Has contemporary politics killed any hope for a free and prosperous future? Igniting Liberty: Voices for Freedom Around the World is a must-read manifesto for advocates of liberty, and a great introductory gift for those not yet acquainted. The compelling, original arguments and powerful statistics laden within these pages can give you the upper-hand in a debate, or even turn the greatest liberty-skeptic into a believer. Join seven libertarian authors with diverse backgrounds and fields of expertise as they draw attention to some of the problems we face and how we can go about fixing them. "... the reader will surely be challenged to contemplate all the roles for liberty in our lives. And that is crucial." - Larry Sharpe, Foreword

At the Fence of Metternich's Garden

At the Fence of Metternich's Garden
Author: Mykola Riabchuk
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838214846

This collection of essays reflects the personal experience of a Ukrainian intellectual engaged, since his Soviet-time youth, in a painstaking but fascinating process of the both cultural and political ‘Europeanization’ of his country. The title refers, ironically, to the notorious Chancellor Metternich’s quip that Asia presumably begins at the eastern fence of his garden (or, as another apocryphal version maintains, at the eastern end of the Viennese Landstrasse). This is a story of both exclusion and inclusion, of walls and fences, but also of a longing for freedom and a quest for solidarity. It is a book on different ways of being a ‘European’—at both the collective and individual level,—despite various challenges or, perhaps, thanks to them.

Death and the Penguin

Death and the Penguin
Author: Andrey Kurkov
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2011-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1935554557

"No summary can do justice to the strange appeal of this unusual, short book, which is at once a crime novel, a comic novel and a serious political satire on contemporary Ukraine." —Anne Applebaum, The Wall Street Journal With the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly-free Ukraine is a shell-shocked land . . . In poverty-and-violence-wracked Kyiv, unemployed writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life with his only friend, Misha, a penguin that he rescued when the local zoo started getting rid of animals it couldn't feed. Even more nerve-wracking for Victor: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to borrow him for events. But Viktor thinks he’s finally caught a break when he lands a well-paying job at the Kyiv newspaper writing “living obituaries” of local dignitaries—articles to be filed for use when the time comes. The only thing is, the time always seems to come as soon as Viktor finishes writing the article. Slowly understanding that his own life may be in jeopardy, Viktor also realizes that the only thing that might be keeping him alive is his penguin.

Ukraine Diaries

Ukraine Diaries
Author: Andrey Kurkov
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-07-31
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1473520479

-16°C, sunlight, silence. I drove the children to school, then went to see the revolution. I walked between the tents. Talked with revolutionaries. They were weary today. The air was thick with the smell of old campfires. Ukraine Diaries is acclaimed writer Andrey Kurkov’s first-hand account of the ongoing crisis in his country. From his flat in Kiev, just five hundred yards from Independence Square, Kurkov can smell the burning barricades and hear the sounds of grenades and gunshot. Kurkov’s diaries begin on the first day of the pro-European protests in November, and describe the violent clashes in the Maidan, the impeachment of Yanukovcyh, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine. Going beyond the headlines, they give vivid insight into what it’s like to live through – and try to make sense of – times of intense political unrest.