THE KENNAN INSTITUTE/HARRIMAN INSTITUTE CONTEMPORARY UKRAINIAN LITERATURE SERIES

In 2008, the Kennan Institute and the Harriman Institute’s Ukrainian Studies Program at Columbia University initiated a series showcasing contemporary Ukrainian literature through events with Ukrainian writers.

Since the launch of the series, Ukraine has frequently appeared in news headlines, but too often associated with stories about continuing challenges to Ukraine’s sovereignty and stability, or about the country’s ongoing struggles with corruption and divisive domestic politics. In addition, much of the analytical research and writing about Ukraine coming out of the think tank and university communities has also tended to focus primarily on negative stories about Ukraine’s many challenges.

This context makes it all the more important for institutions like the Harriman and the Kennan to collaborate to support the Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series. Those who have attended our lectures, either in Washington or in New York, have come away with a sense of Ukraine far deeper and more profound than what can be gleaned from discussions of gas pipelines, Little Green Men, or IMF lending packages.

The Kennan Institute supports this series because of our enduring commitment to the study of Ukraine and its region as a whole, which must include a strong foundation of culture, history, art, and literature. In the same spirit, the Kennan Institute in Ukraine has played a key role in helping to develop the strategy for and promotion of Ukrainian cultural diplomacy in Europe, North America and beyond. In partnership with Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, the Kennan Institute’s Kyiv Office held the second annual Cultural Diplomacy Forum in April 2016, with 300 participants. Over the summer of 2016, the Kennan Institute hosted a major art installation by renowned Ukrainian artist Victor Sydorenko. And President Petro Poroshenko specifically thanked the Kennan Institute for its efforts toward developing Ukraine’s cultural diplomacy during his 2016 address to Ukraine’s parliamentary body, the Verkhovna Rada.

The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series is likewise an important component of the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. The Harriman’s Ukrainian Studies Program organizes courses, lectures, and conferences in Ukrainian studies featuring an international array of specialists in Ukrainian history, politics, language, and literature. Recent conferences organized by the program have focused on non-conformity and dissent in the Soviet bloc, media in Ukraine, and the city of Kharkiv as an important center of Ukrainian culture. Events organized by the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University, together with the Literature Series, reflect the Program’s emphasis on contemporary Ukraine. Both the Kennan and the Harriman recognize the importance in having an awareness of Ukraine’s culture when analyzing the country today.

As political and economic upheavals persist in Ukraine, public life seems unimaginable without the cultural accomplishments that have continued to enliven Ukrainian society ever since the collapse of pervasive Soviet censorship on literary and artistic expression. Observing Ukraine through its literary landscape offers an opportunity to understand much of the transformation that has occurred since it gained its independence. The creative energy unleashed in Ukrainian literature in recent decades has displayed such a variety of styles, themes, and approaches that readers, many of them young, continue to be enthralled by literary depictions of Ukrainian life: the lingering vestiges of the old Soviet system, the new freedom of open borders, the unremitting turbulence of social and political life, and the individual search for meaning and fulfillment amidst these changing circumstances.