The Ukraine Shelf

In this episode we spoke to the prominent Ukrainian writer and soldier Artem Chapeye and translator Daisy Gibbons. Our wide-ranging discussion covered what it means to write dystopian novels in Ukraine today; how to find the balance between the particular and the universal when writing about Ukraine and why Ukrainian experiences should be seen as part of world literature; what it means to be a wri...

The Ukraine Shelf Episode 7: Reporting War with Myroslav Laiuk and Luke Harding In this episode Olesya Khromeychuk and Uilleam Blacker are joined by Luke Harding, award-winning Guardian correspondent, and Myroslav Laiuk, one of Ukraine’s leading writers, to discuss writing war reportage. Luke has been reporting on global conflicts for many years and wrote one of the first and best accounts of the...

How do we make sense of war, shifting borders, and forced displacement? How can we remember and speak about these things, and how can literature act as a witness, perhaps even bring a sense of justice? And what lessons can we draw from the tumultuous history of Ukraine and Europe to help us understand what is happening today? This special edition of the Ukraine Shelf podcast featuring poet Oksana...

In this episode, we talk about one of the most fundamental things in all our lives: food. How can food help us understand culture, identity, and history? How does food bring people together in dark times? How has Ukraine’s status as a major global exporter of food been affected by the war? We discuss all these questions and more with two brilliant food writers - Olia Hercules and Felicity Spector....

How can we speak and write about war? What role does silence play in this process? What does it mean for people and places to survive war? We discussed these questions and more with two brilliant writers, Maria Tumarkin and Yuliya Musakovska, whose works have interrogated war and trauma in uncompromisingly honest and perceptive ways. This episode of The Ukraine Shelf was recorded in front of a liv...

In this episode, we explore the industrial regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. From 2014 until 2022, this was where Russia focused its war of aggression against Ukraine, killing and uprooting thousands of people. Russia claimed these regions were culturally and historically Russian, but history, and the people of these regions themselves, tell a different story: the majority consider themselves Ukrain...

The Ukraine Shelf's second episode hosts Dr Sasha Dovzhyk and Eugene Finkel to discuss threats to Ukrainian culture and identity Russia has attempted to repress and destroy Ukrainian statehood and identity over two centuries. In this episode, we trace the historical roots of Russia’s current aggression to imperial myths from the early 19th century, and look at how these myths have resurfaced repea...

The Ukraine Shelf's first episode hosts Elmaz Asan and Rory Finnin to discuss Crimea Russia’s aggression against Ukraine began not in 2022, but in 2014, with the invasion and occupation of Crimea. This episode explores Crimea’s significance as a strategically important nexus between east and west, between Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and as an integral part of Ukraine historically, politica...