A bilingual journal about ideas and culture is established in Ukraine

re/visions, a bilingual monthly journal about ideas and culture, has been established in Ukraine. Its motto is: Thinking together, to better imagine the future.

“The title speaks for itself. We will be looking into and revisiting topics and concepts, what excites and empowers us, what inspires and makes the world what it is. Every month, we will share amazing authors, interviewees, characters to explore and reconsider, and, most importantly, an invitation to conversation,” critic, journalist, and the journal’s editor-in-chief Daria Badior wrote on her Facebook page.

According to Badior, the idea for the journal appeared after the outbreak of the full-scale invasion, during a conversation with Sofia Dyak about how this war is rewiring our understanding of certain terms.

“We were thinking about a series of public events on this topic, but later — probably after a year or more — we decided that we could try creating a journal to capture people’s thoughts on these concepts or terms. That’s how the idea of an online journal developed, which would be published every month, with each issue dedicated to a specific topic, framed in one or a couple of words,” the editor added.

The journal will be published every month with a new theme — the first issue titled “Grief and Healing.” The journal’s website noted that this frequency was chosen to allow readers and authors to gain more clarity about the causes and consequences of shared experiences.

“The first issue is a pair that works in dynamics: grief and healing. After that, there will be topics related to the societal transformations that we are all witnessing, how we function as societies, with the environment, politics, and so on,” Badior said in a comment for Chytomo.

Each issue will contain five sections:

• Conversations: long-form interviews with experts, academics, civic activists, or cultural actors, connected to the topic of the issue.
• Context: thematic essays by thinkers, researchers, or cultural actors, offering both a broad view and personal insights. 
• Visual: short pieces that explore visuals as such, analyzing archival photography or film footage, and reflecting on their role in our lives.
• Reviews: in-depth reviews of films, books, exhibitions, conferences, theater plays, art performances, and more.
• People: pieces that focus on a thinker, writer, or artist whose life story may have been overlooked, falling between the cracks of established canons, or whose legacy we want to revisit.

re/visions will be published in two languages: Ukrainian and English. Writing by Ukrainian authors will be translated into English, and pieces by international contributors into Ukrainian.

“It is important that we are a bilingual publication, thus encouraging the exchange of ideas and nurturing intellectual connections within each issue. Our magazine is mostly about ideas, but also about culture in its broadest sense. So our audience consists of people who are curious about what is happening around them and why it is happening the way it is. We are probably closer to Korydor and Krytyka than to academic journals, although we are — and already have been — involving contributors from the academic field. But we are not limited to that — we also receive contributions from journalists, critics, and artists,” the journal’s founder said.

Team:

• Editor-in-chief, critic, editor, film curator based in Kyiv: Daria Badior;
• Editor, journalist: Natalie Nougayrède;
• Contributing editor, historian: Sofia Dyak;
• Literary editor, translator: Anna Protsuk.

You can subscribe to the monthly newsletter to receive a presentation of the latest issue and recommendations for books, movies, and articles by clicking this link.

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Copy editing: Terra Friedman King