Crucial news in culture: monthly digest

07.07.2023

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Chytomo summarizes the most important news of the last month in Ukrainian culture at war. These weeks have been full of losses and announcements of prominent book publishing events and awards.

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Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina killed by Russian missiles

Victoria Amelina was an author of prose and poetry, a member of PEN Ukraine and PEN International, and an active volunteer. In 2022, Victoria Amelina became a member of the human rights organization Truth Hounds, dedicating herself to documenting Russian war crimes in the de-occupied territories of Eastern, Southern, and Northern regions of Ukraine. She also began writing her first non-fiction book in English — “War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War.”

She was working on creating “a documentary detective story about the search for justice by Ukrainian civil society, a diary about documenting war crimes in Russia, about advocating for international justice, about working with survivors and witnesses.”

10 libraries and 5 museums in Kherson region are flooded

All the damaged cultural heritage sites were added to a specially created map showing the consequences of the flooding due to the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. To see how Ukrainian illustrators depict common pain after the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant explosion, read Chytomo’s article.

Ukrainian Journalists union: Russia has killed 63 Ukrainian media workers since Feb. 24, 2022

Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has committed more than 500 crimes against representatives of the press and media. This was reported at a press conference “Crimes against media workers” organized by the Center for Civil Liberties at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

The Book Arsenal Festival was held in Kyiv

Due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, the festival offered a limited format, but nevertheless attracted a significant number of guests — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the First Lady attended the festival, as well as international guests, including Gvantsa Jobava, Vice President of the International Publishers Association.

28 000 visitors attended the festival.

This year, the festival happened simultaneously with Independent Bookshop Week.

Global interest in Ukrainian studies has grown significantly – research

The study notes that after Russia’s full-scale invasion, interest in Ukrainian studies in foreign universities and analytical centers has increased dramatically. In many Western universities, the number of freshmen who have chosen to study Ukrainian has increased, new courses on Ukraine have been announced, and new centers have begun to open. The full text of the study is available here.

Zelenskyy signs law to make it impossible to pirate and publish authors from Russia

In addition to imports of book products from Russia and Belarus, the law, through administrative and economic sanctions, would prevent: piracy; publication of Russian authors in Ukraine; translation of books into Russian by Ukrainian publishers. The law does not prohibit the publication of Russian-language books – Ukrainian authors writing in Russian will be freely published in Ukraine. Similarly, the law does not prohibit citizens from purchasing books in Russian for their own use in non-wholesale quantities.

Winners of the International Poster Biennale announced

The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw has announced the winners of the 28th International Poster Biennale. Ukrainian illustrator Dasha Podoltseva received a gold medal for her work “Harvest”. This was reported on the Academy’s website.

All the winners’ works will be displayed at a major poster festival that will run in Poland until the fall of 2023.

For now, we are focused on book publishing and literature in Ukraine, meanwhile in the next few weeks we plan to cover more news from Eastern and Central Europe. If you have important news to share with editorial, don’t hesitate to write us: [email protected]