Art as Medicine: Inside the First Year of the I’mmortal Fellowship

Published: October 7, 2026

Five cross-border partnerships with one shared mission, and why creative practice belongs at the center of Ukraine’s recovery

This summer, in the village of Nahachiv in Ukraine’s Lviv region, 80 children spent a week dancing, drawing, taking photographs, and writing their own plays. On the final day, they performed for their parents, neighbors, and local leaders. The show explored freedom, identity, and support, and the children imagined worlds of their own making.

Among the volunteers who joined The Campfire Project and Folkowisko Ukraine – the participants of our inaugural I’mmortal Fellowship – was two-time Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg, who had spent a year learning the Cyrillic alphabet so he could read his lines in Ukrainian during the children’s performances. Two air-raid sirens sounded that week in the area, both after the day’s programming had ended.

For us, this week captures what the I’mmortal Fellowship (Безсмертні) is about: using art as healing practice for those most in need.

“Art has always been how people make meaning and take care of communities in the hardest moments,” says Razom CEO Dora Chomiak. This year, we watched that happen in real time.

Why Arts in Health, Why Now

I’mmortal is Razom’s first Arts in Health program, created in partnership with Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts. It started from a simple idea: creative practice can be part of how people recover.

The need in Ukraine is enormous. After more than four years of full-scale invasion, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that a mental health crisis affects about 10 million people in Ukraine. Rehabilitation needs far exceed existing service capacity, and only 4% of hospitals provide inpatient rehabilitation.

At the same time, the evidence around arts and health is growing. A major WHO review of more than 3,000 studies found that the arts can play an important role in preventing ill health, promoting health, and managing and treating illness across the lifespan.

When we opened the I’mmortal Open Call this spring, we received 35 applications from across Ukraine and the United States. They came from NGOs, cultural collectives, artists, clinicians, and universities. Our Selection Committee matched 12 of them into five cross-border partnerships.

Each received a grant of up to $10,000 for their pilot projects, and was asked to co-create, not simply export an American model to Ukraine, or vice versa.

Five Partnerships, Five Different Stories

Gathering Around the Fire. Eleven artists, creative arts therapists, translators, and a psychiatrist, led by New York-based The Campfire Project and its director Jessica Hecht, traveled from the US to work alongside the local Folkowisko Ukraine team. After the children’s summer camp, they trained 30 educators, social workers, psychologists, and doctors in Yavoriv, some of whom came from frontline regions. The training was run with the Jameel Arts & Health Lab and the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe. As part of the program, participants were also equipped with tools they can continue using long after the visiting team leaves.

Artscapes of Care. This project started with a question that is easy to overlook: Who takes care of the people who take care of everyone else? Through soundscapes, movement, and visual storytelling, US partners Kerry Kincy and Dr. Midori Samson joined Kyiv-based First Aid of the Soul in Lviv for interactive, arts-based workshops with children and families at St. Nicholas Hospital, veterans at UNBROKEN, and teachers at Oberih School, which serves children with intellectual disabilities. The exchange culminated in a professional development and networking program at Ukrainian Catholic University for mental health and social service practitioners from across the region. It highlighted something important: supporting the people providing care is part of supporting the people they serve.

Rhythm as Regulation. This summer, New Orleans-based dancer and acupuncturist Yekaterina Chizayeva and Ukrainian somatic educator and psychologist Kateryna Taranova brought together a group of Ukrainian artists in the Carpathian town of Slavsko. The group included dancers, ceramicists, vocalists, and visual artists. They worked in different mediums, but found a common thread: the rhythms of the nervous system, and the power of creative practice to support regulation, wellbeing, and resilience. The residency has grown into a community of practitioners who continue to meet and share knowledge. A second lab follows in New Orleans in October, with the goal of creating a shared toolkit for rhythm-based practices and exploring how movement and sound can help ease anxiety, calm groups together, and support recovery from the sensory toll of war, including the hypervigilance caused by drones overhead.

Me – The Other. This inclusive theatre initiative pairs The Theatre Lab’s Life Stories Institute in Washington, D.C., with Yuliia Vintoniv, a theologian and educator from Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Yuliia is working to build a university course based on The Theatre Lab’s Life Stories method, which draws on more than 20 years of autobiographical theatre. Starting in January 2027, the pilot course will bring together about 20 to 25 students with people who have congenital disabilities or injuries from the war. Through movement, storytelling, improvisation, and writing, they will create original theatre from their own lives and challenge the stigma around disability in wartime Ukraine. The learning goes both ways. Yuliia is training with The Theatre Lab online and in person in the US, while The Theatre Lab will bring what it learns from Ukraine to its own work with US military veterans. In the long run, the team hopes to bring the course to other universities across Ukraine.

Moving, Imagining, and Unbroken. This dance and movement program for Ukrainian combat veterans is led by New York based Exit12 Dance Company, the Imagination Lab at SUNY Albany, and Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University in Lutsk. The program combines movement with surrealism-inspired drawing and collage and is being adapted for amputees and veterans with limited mobility. The work is grounded in research: the Imagination Lab’s studies link engaging with surrealist art to resilience and emotional richness, and participants will take part in voluntary surveys before and after each workshop to measure changes in resilience, hope and wellbeing. Pilot workshops in the New York area will bring Ukrainian and American veterans into the same room.

Coming Together at Wesleyan

From November 2–7, all five partnerships will gather at Wesleyan for a week of shared programming and peer exchange. The week ends with a public Capstone Showcase on November 7 at 2 pm at Fayerweather Beckham Hall in Middletown, CT. Each team will share what it built this year and how they envision bringing the work into Ukrainian hospitals, veterans’ centers, schools, and communities in 2027.

Why “I’mmortal”

The Fellowship’s name brings together two ideas: mortality, which is part of being human and the subject of medicine, and the lasting power of the arts.

In the creative arts, the healing arts, and the act of making something together, we are immortal, even when what we face is the fragility of our bodies or the difficulty of staying connected to the world.

This year, we saw it in a village hall in Nahachiv, a mountain studio in Slavsko, a hospital ward in Lviv, and a rehearsal room in New York.

On November 7, come witness it at Wesleyan!

Rachel Shuey and Viktorija Mickute, Razom Connect

Ukrainian Culture Takes Center Stage in New York

Published: September 28, 2026

A look behind the scenes of the Ukrainian Cultural Festival, and why showing up matters.

“October is Ukrainian culture month,” we’ve heard around New York City over the past few years. And for us, that is one of the clearest signs of what Razom’s Ukrainian Cultural Festival (UCF) has become.

This is our fourth year, and in 2026 we are reaching new stages, new audiences, and new partners across the city. As producers curating performing arts programming for Razom for Ukraine, we get to see the vision come to life each year, from our very first brainstorming sessions to the final moments when the theater and venues are restored to their original forms and everything gets quiet again.

This year, we have the privilege of partnering with the Alexander & Buono Foundation to open the festival at Carnegie Hall with the US premiere of Ukrainian composer Oleg Bezborodko’s Steel, Violet, Rage, performed by the Shelest Piano Duo (Anna and Dmitri Shelest) alongside the Brandywine Symphony Orchestra from the greater Philadelphia region.

The title of the piano concerto alone tells a story. Steel evokes Azovstal, the vast steelworks in Mariupol that became a place of extraordinary resistance during the siege of the city in 2022, and with it the endurance and heroism of its defenders. Violet comes from the final poem of Ukrainian poet and soldier Maksym Kryvtsov, killed in action in 2024. And Rage needs little explanation.

But this is not a concert about the war. It is Ukrainian contemporary music, including a piece by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, performed alongside works by the legendary American composers Philip Glass and Samuel Barber.

By design, UCF is a rare opportunity to bring extraordinary Ukrainian talent to New York as artists whose work belongs in the city’s cultural life, without reducing it to the current devastation of war. This is one of the reasons we’re proud to work tirelessly on the festival each year and see it receive the recognition it deserves.

Over three weeks, starting October 18 through November 6, audiences will encounter Ukrainian cinema, literature, theater, and classical music performances. We are partnering with established cultural institutions such as QUAD Cinema, DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, The Public Theater, Teatro LATEA, the New York Public Library, Poets House and more.

For us, this expansion in partnerships and locations is one of the most exhilarating parts. It proves the point: Ukrainian art should not exist only in Ukrainian spaces as it belongs in the wider cultural landscape of New York.

Stories On Stage

One of the performances we’re particularly looking forward to is The Reckoning: Selected Scenes and Conversation by Dash Arts, a New York preview of verbatim theater based on verified survivor testimony from russia’s war in Ukraine.

It tells the story of one man who remained in his village outside Kyiv when others fled. The performance will be followed by a conversation between London-based director Josephine Burton and Peter Pomerantsev, co-founder of The Reckoning Project, about the testimony behind the work and the documentation of war crimes.

Our festival becomes the springboard for further exploration and workshopping of this piece ahead of its US tour in 2027. Praised as “powerful and important” and “brilliant, sharp stage craft” in the UK, the production comes to UCF with US-based Ukrainian actors Petro Ninovskyi and Sasha Odesa.

At the festival, we not only bring Ukrainian artists’ work to New York, but also showcase American talent working on Ukrainian stories. Playwright Richard Nelson’s new play, More Beauty Than Sorrow, created in Kyiv, looks at Lesia Ukrainka and her family through their everyday lives rather than through the usual monumental portrait of a national literary figure. The festivalgoers will be able to see the production that was created in Ukraine in a film screening at The Public Theater.

A Full Circle

This year, the festival closes where it started – with a return to Carnegie Hall with Unbreakable Harmony, bringing together the Kyiv Lysenko State Music Lyceum Chamber Girls’ Choir and the Westchester Children’s Chorus.

They will perform Ukrainian and American music, songs about peace and community, and, finally, Shchedryk – the Ukrainian melody better known in the US as Carol of the Bells.

This carries a specific meaning: Shchedryk was first performed for American audiences at Carnegie Hall in 1921. More than a century later, Ukrainian children will sing it there again.

Artists need audiences and culture survives by staying alive in people’s minds and hearts.

Artists need not only donations and support, but also the chance to connect and be together in a room with audiences during these very challenging times.

You may come because you want to support Ukraine, but you may leave having discovered a composer, actor, filmmaker, or story you knew nothing about.

And that is the beauty of something we can’t live without: culture. And this year, we have some spectacular moments of Ukrainian culture to witness together.

We hope you’ll join us.

Rachel Shuey and Viktorija Mickute, UCF Producers

Rooted in Ukraine: Three Years of the RUTA Conference

Published: September 7, 2026

My name is Anna Andruseiko and this was my third year coordinating the RUTA Conference. The RUTA Association is an international academic association for Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies. The conference serves as a statement and act of solidarity with Ukrainian scholars. Every year the conference brings together more than 150 individuals from more than 20 countries who come to Ukraine because of it. The guiding light for the team is to foster dialogue across the regions and beyond.

How RUTA works

The RUTA team works almost exclusively on a voluntary basis and is run by the Board of Representatives, who are elected for three year terms. Regional diversity is a very important feature of the Board, with every member representing a distinct RUTA region. The conference is the organization’s main event. For four days, scholars gather in Ukraine to discuss topics and themes that have been marginalized within academic circles for years.

As a team, we strive to create cross-regional panels from the applications we receive, as the point is to work outside the box in order to recognise that many of our challenges and problems are shared across our regions, and that we can learn from each other in order to decolonise the narratives that have persisted about our regions. Another important point is that we invite not only scholars but also artists and activists, as it is important to move beyond academic articles and find ways to put what we discuss into practice.

Why I joined RUTA

As I have a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Studies, the topics of the conference and the Association’s mission are very close to my heart, especially given that the conference has annually been held in Ukraine. I have travelled a lot for different Erasmus projects, and I have all too frequently encountered the misconception that Ukraine has no distinct history of its own, and can simply be absorbed into “Russian studies.” That is why I joined RUTA in 2023.

Why it is important to hold the conference in Ukraine

First of all, it is a way to stand in solidarity with Ukrainian scholars who cannot currently leave Ukraine to attend academic conferences. Another reason is to bring back those Ukrainian scholars who have left the country. This may seem obvious, but they really do need a reason to come back, even for such a short time. And last but not least, it is a way to show the country to participants who are coming here for the first time, and to give them the opportunity to see from the inside how we live here permanently, what our culture is like and so on.

I can definitely say that it takes a lot of courage to come here, and as the RUTA team, we deeply appreciate that trust. When people come from Australia, the US, Canada, Qazaqstan and Japan to spend four days in Ukraine, it gives us hope that we are doing the right thing.

Uzhhorod

From my perspective as a Ukrainian, I see great symbolism in the fact that the conference has taken place in Uzhhorod for the third year in a row. The city is located on the border, at the frontier, and it encompasses so many nationalities and challenges, yet somehow people manage to live there and to create new meanings there as well. It is also the smallest regional centre in Ukraine, and it is extremely important to get away from major centres to decentralise knowledge production.

Positioning the region

Even though the organization provides a strong focus on Ukraine, it is essential for us to position it historically alongside other regions and countries.. We strive to dismantle the false bonds and rivalries that have been built over the years under the labels of Russian Studies or Slavic Studies, which have often merged the identities of different countries and treated them all as if they were the same, without recognising their distinct character.

At the opening ceremony of the RUTA Conference 2026, our Board Member Grazina Bielousova raised an important question about the term decoloniality, which is widely used today:

“Decoloniality invites new ways of imagining a future in which life otherwise — outside of the colonial gaze, colonial power, colonial knowledge creation, colonial legal frameworks — becomes possible. Decoloniality is also a way for us to know ourselves on our own terms, to speak ourselves in languages, both figurative and literal, that are our own.”

I would add that, apart from being a huge opportunity to finally escape this colonial gaze, decoloniality also comes with immense responsibility — and I would like to highlight that we cannot be given responsibility, we can only take it. This requires a lot of courage: not to start from scratch, but to rewrite existing narratives. Even though it is an extremely difficult process, I always keep in mind that decolonisation starts from love, as Mariam Naiem highlights in her book. This idea resonates deeply with me, particularly in relation to the conference. We can start the process of decolonisation with love and respect for the people we are doing it for. I want this country to be a better place. We design the conference to be a space where bold ideas and people can meet and be themselves, no matter their identity, race or origin.

Building an institution

Put in practical terms, it is extremely difficult to build an international institution in Ukraine that, in many ways, challenges established narratives and concepts used in the academic world. From time to time, we hear that RUTA is not enough of an academic association, because we include a lot of art presentations , and bring activists into our conversations. But in fact this can be seen as evidence that we are successfully challenging established rules and expectations and are we are moving in the right direction.

It is RUTA’s third year as an institution, and we are still working out how we can become more stable and independent. These past years would not have been possible without our partners and supporters, who believed in us and had the courage to raise the same questions we do, and engage in these difficult discussions.

Partnership with Razom for Ukraine

Because RUTA, as an institution, is new and requires new approaches to management, this motivated me to enrol in the Management of Nonprofit Organisations programme at UCU, Lviv. As I often find myself saying, holistic support is very important, and my studies would not have been possible without the scholarship from Razom for Ukraine. In this way, I have a direct opportunity to test the knowledge I gain and to put it into practice at RUTA, from creating new financial models to establishing the RUTA Community.

Razom for Ukraine is an example of how we can build a multi-year partnership where financial investment is just one layer , but, more importantly, where we build relationships and learn from each other. Through this support, we came to recognise the need for more structured work with young scholars, and this will be one of our main strategic directions in the coming years. Through our conversations, we also managed to bring Maya Hayuk and the Tryzub Project to Ukraine and to establish the RUTA volunteer programme for the second year in a row.

There is still a lot to overcome and to create, but as an emerging institution, we are grateful to be able to rely on our partners. I greatly appreciate that Razom for Ukraine supports both the individuals who drive institutions and the institutions themselves — because without the people at the heart of these initiatives, nothing would change.

Ukrainian Animation Takes Center Stage at International Animation Conference in Pittsburgh

Published: July 29, 2026

From June 15–19, Pittsburgh became a gathering place for some of the world’s leading animation scholars, artists, and filmmakers during the 37th Annual Conference of the Society for Animation Studies (SAS). Supported by Razom, Ukrainian animators joined the international conversation to showcase their work, share their experiences of creating during wartime, and introduce global audiences to a vibrant animation industry that continues to thrive despite Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Organized by the Pennsylvania Expanded Animation Alliance (PA-XAA) and the Society for Animation Studies, the conference brought together more than 100 researchers, artists, and industry professionals to explore animation as a medium for storytelling, memory, trauma, and human connection.

Bringing Ukrainian Stories to International Audiences

One of the conference highlights was “Resilient Reels: Ukrainian Animation on Screen and In Conversation,” held on June 16 at Pittsburgh’s Harris Theater.

The evening featured a curated screening of contemporary Ukrainian animated films, followed by a discussion with acclaimed Ukrainian animation directors and animation artists Sashko Danylenko, Daryna Fes, and Sasha Ruban, who joined online from Ukraine.

The conversation explored what it means to create art during war — from documenting national trauma and preserving childhood in times of violence to building an animation industry under extraordinary circumstances.

More importantly, it gave audiences the opportunity to hear directly from Ukrainian artists.

Many attendees remarked that meeting Ukrainian filmmakers in person added an entirely new dimension to the films they had just watched. Others said the discussion helped them better understand both the realities of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the resilience of Ukraine’s creative community.

Art That Continues Beyond the Screen

The conference coincided with The Animate Experience, an exhibition presented by the Pennsylvania Expanded Animation Alliance, The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, and the Society for Animation Studies at Pittsburgh MuseumLab.

Among the featured artists was Razom Cinema grantee Daryna Fes, whose multimedia works were included in the exhibition. She attended the opening in person, introducing visitors to her work and engaging in conversations about contemporary Ukrainian art.

Visitors continued discussing her VR installation, Spheres, throughout the conference, making it one of the exhibition’s memorable works.

More Than Filmmakers — Cultural Ambassadors

For the Ukrainian delegation, the conference was about much more than presenting films.

“Our small Ukrainian team not only enjoyed the event as visitors but also advocated for Ukraine — you simply cannot be anyone but an ambassador at international events,” said director Sashko Danylenko. “Stand out, spread the word, fight russian narratives and propaganda, fill in the blanks, and most importantly, build empathy.”

Danylenko also noted that scheduling the Ukrainian screening at the beginning of the conference helped spark conversations that continued throughout the week, creating opportunities to connect with scholars, educators, and fellow artists.

For Daryna Fes, the event demonstrated how animation can foster meaningful dialogue.

“Many attendees were curious about the situation in Ukraine, and I believe events like this — screenings of Ukrainian animation, Q&As, and informal conversations — help people better understand what’s happening in Ukraine. Alongside traditional animation, the festival also embraced a more artistic dimension, offering both the platform and the technical setup to show even technically demanding works. “

Why Representation Matters

For the conference organizers, introducing Ukrainian animation to an international academic audience was a long-term investment.

While Ukrainian animation remains underrepresented globally, professors and researchers attending the conference help shape future film and animation curricula. Increasing their familiarity with Ukrainian works means more students around the world may encounter Ukrainian stories in classrooms for years to come.

The event also extended beyond the conference itself. By hosting the screening in a public cinema rather than inside the conference venue, organizers welcomed members of the Pittsburgh community, creating another opportunity to raise awareness about Ukraine through culture.

Building Connections Through Culture

Throughout the week, conversations continued well beyond scheduled panels.

Audience members praised the diversity of Ukrainian animation, discussed their favorite films with the filmmakers, and asked thoughtful questions about working during wartime. Others expressed appreciation for hearing multiple perspectives from artists living through the same historical moment.

One particularly memorable interaction came after the screening, when an audience member approached Sashko Danylenko to share that he had long admired his work and could hardly believe they were finally meeting in person.

These are the connections that cultural exchange makes possible — especially in spaces like SAS creates.

“Academic community is important in this regard, because instructors who teach courses on film and animation, make choices which works they include in their syllabi, and their familiarization with Ukrainian animation can potentially result in Ukrainian animated films being seen by their students in the future.” — noted the conference organizers.

By supporting Ukrainian artists at international events like the Society for Animation Studies conference, Razom helps ensure that Ukrainian voices are not only heard — they become part of the global cultural conversation.

Because culture is more than art. It is memory, identity, and a powerful way to build understanding across borders.

Why the World Needs Ukrainian Books

Published: July 8, 2026

Dear friends of Razom,

This is Kateryna Kazimirova, Razom Literature Program Lead, and I want to take you with me to Kyiv, where last week of May, under skies that couldn’t decide between sirens and the heavy bloom of peonies, one of the most important literary events in the world took place.

But first, let me tell you why I’m the one writing this letter.

Growing up in Donetsk, I was fortunate to be surrounded by books, the people who wrote them, and brilliant teachers who introduced me to both. I went to study literary theory, later taught it, built a life inside Ukrainian literature, and took for granted that this world mattered beyond its own borders. Then, in 2014, Russia occupied my home and succeeded not only in seizing territory, but in imposing its fiction – about Donbas, about Ukraine, about who belonged where. I watched it happen with two kinds of grief: the obvious one, along with a quieter realization that Ukraine’s writers, the people I considered heroes, were unknown outside my world.

Why did so few people know the writers who had shaped me? How could a nation with such a rich literary tradition remain so invisible abroad? Most importantly, in light of all that happened, how are we going to change that?

For the last decade, already in Kyiv, I had been trying to do my part by running a literary journal, and creating innovative tools to promote Ukrainian culture like Chapter Ukraine. Now I have joined Razom to expand our shared mission of helping the world discover Ukrainian literature. This year, I came back to Arsenal on behalf of Razom to participate in the festival and organize a panel on one of the questions I think about most: what actually stands between Ukrainian books and anglophone readers?

An Arsenal of a Different Kind

When I call it the best literary festival in the world, this is not only my sentiment. In 2019, Book Arsenal was recognized as the world’s best literary festival of the year at the International Publishing Industry Excellence Awards organized by the London Book Fair. It has been running annually since 2012, skipping only twice: during the pandemic outbreak and the year of the full-scale invasion. It came back in 2023, grew to 35,000 visitors in 2024, and, like Ukraine, is stronger every year since.

Why “Arsenal”? The building where the festival takes place was originally built in 1783 by imperial decree as a weapons depot – a fortress-like structure with walls six feet thick, covering nearly twenty-five acres in the heart of Kyiv. But the ground it stands on is older than that: the site was a 16th-century convent, whose most prominent patron was the mother of Hetman Ivan Mazepa – the Ukrainian leader who defied Peter I and became a lasting symbol of resistance to Russian rule. The empire demolished the convent and built an arsenal in its place. Ukrainians eventually took the arsenal back and filled it with books instead.

My own Arsenal story started in 2015, when I fled Donetsk to Kyiv and found, once again, what I had lost: a community of booklovers and cultural professionals that felt like home. In the years when I wasn’t working in culture full-time, I would take a week off work just for the festival, spending days discovering new books, listening to authors, panel discussions, and then finding friends in the garden as the evening came, reading poetry to each other and talking for hours.

This one week of the year, everyone comes, no matter where the last twelve months have scattered us. We synchronize our clocks, make plans, and simply be together. But the magnetism runs deeper. Arsenal is one of those rare places where you feel fully alive – concentrated, meaningful, part of something larger than yourself. Where the line between past and present dissolves, and you can feel the full weight of a cultural tradition that has been carried across generations and is still being carried, right now, by the people standing next to you. You listen to one of the sharpest minds alive give a talk that rearranges something in your thinking, then meet them in the coffee queue twenty minutes later and talk like old friends. Where else does that happen?

And underneath all of it is the simple act of being here. Of having made it through another year. Once you have been part of the world of Arsenal, something in you keeps returning to it, the way you return to a place that has known you at your best.

Bear Your Freedom

Each year Arsenal has a theme. This year it was Bear Your Freedom, curated by Maksym Butkevych – journalist, human rights activist, former POW, who spent 913 days in Russian captivity before being released in October 2024. Razom supports his initiative Principle of Hope, which develops materials supporting the psychological recovery of returning prisoners, and separate guidance helping soldiers understand how to preserve their lives in captivity.

His central argument: freedom and responsibility are inseparable – “siamese twins” and the greater danger is not that freedom is taken from us, but that we surrender it willingly, trading it for comfort or the illusion of stability. For Butkevych, freedom is never only about oneself, but about those beside us, the ability to build the future together and defend it together: “Perhaps this is Ukraine’s new mission today: not only to fight for freedom, but to help the world rediscover its value.”

One more topic within this theme was the fragility of heroism. Writers and soldiers Artem Chapeye and Artur Dron put it plainly: a hero is not someone without fear or exhaustion, but someone who keeps moving despite both. As Dron said, society creates “bronze” heroes out of convenience, so everyone else can watch from the sidelines and feel absolved. The real call is to see the person behind the symbol, recognize their needs, and act – because bearing freedom together means no one should carry it alone.

On the day of our panel, I arrived early, before the festival opened to the public. Walking through one of the pavilions, I came across the room full of military chaplains – still, present, sacred. Later that day, one of them presented a new book titled Care for the Spirit. And then, watching the main stage fill for readings by soldier-writers, and the lines snaking through the courtyard for their book signing, I realized that combatant literature is no longer a niche: it is the mainstream. It is simply the most honest account of the life Ukrainians are living now.

The Highest Form of Communication

Arsenal’s Writers’ Program, curated by writer and soldier Andriy Lyubka, opened with a deceptively simple question: What do we actually know about our neighbors? We share borders with Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and can barely name five of their writers. When knowledge is scarce, stereotypes fill the gap. For a country that cannot afford adversaries on two fronts, genuine neighborliness is a question of survival.

Among the writers on the Arsenal main stage was Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, who argued that Central European identity is defined not by stable borders but by their absence – by fluidity, fragmentation, a world that keeps shifting underfoot. It is precisely this instability, she said, that produces writers who cannot rely on realism alone, and it is this shared inheritance that connects Ukraine to its neighbors more deeply than any political agreement.

Tokarczuk had something important to say about the power of literature itself: humans are narrative creatures who understand the world through stories, not facts. Literature is the highest form of communication: it reaches where information cannot, using metaphor and symbol to convey truths. In times of war and propaganda, literature is the clean breath; it forces a reckoning with complexity, protects identity the way a magnetic field protects against external force. She reminded the audience that Poland survived 123 years without a state, through language and culture alone.

Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex

Among 240 events that Arsenal hosted across four days were poetry readings that moved to bomb shelters mid-session, a Theatre of Veterans, workshops, music, slam poetry, mile-long signing queues, and in the evenings wild dancing under folk and electronic beats. But one of the most attended was a conversation marking the 30th anniversary of Oksana Zabuzhko’s Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex with Maria Genkin, Razom’s Board Co-Chair, among the speakers.

The book follows a Ukrainian woman writer navigating love, identity, and the weight of post-Soviet womanhood. Publishers at the time genuinely doubted that a Ukrainian-language novel could sell. But it became the first national bestseller of its kind, went through at least seventeen editions, 25 languages, and opened the doors for an entire generation of writers.

Thirty years later, teenage girls return to it as a psychotherapeutic text. Elif Batuman cited it as the book that made her reconsider Russian literature’s colonial hold. Zabuzhko said she no longer owns it – it has become something collective. And in the context of the war, the conversation kept returning to one idea: when a culture is known, and its books are read, a nation becomes harder to kill.

Three Percent Ceiling: Razom’s Way to Break It

Despite the impact of books like Zabuzhko’s across borders, did you know that only 3% of books published in the American market are translated from other languages, all other languages combined? The anglophone market is the hardest literary market in the world to break into. And yet it is the one that matters most for global visibility.

That is why at Book Arsenal, Razom brought together on the main stage a panel of people who know this market from the inside. Emma Shercliffe – a UK literary agent who has sold more Ukrainian titles to British and American publishers than almost anyone – opened by dispelling a persistent myth: people are not tired of the Ukrainian theme. One of her Ukrainian authors is currently her best-selling title. The appetite is real, extending well beyond war narratives into fiction, history, culture. Emma was unambiguous about the quality: the level of intellectual thought in Ukrainian literature, she said, is deeply stimulating, and Ukraine’s top authors hold their own against any international writers. Visibility is no longer the main problem. What remains: the near-absence of agents, the need to be strategic about which publishers you sell rights to, and a grant system that remains practically inaccessible to the larger publishers who could do the most with a book.

Maria Genkin added a pattern she keeps seeing: selling rights to the wrong American publishers – a major new novel going to an academic press that will never invest in promotion. The book comes out, nobody notices, and everyone concludes Ukrainian literature doesn’t sell. Her point was direct: do not sell global rights to a single publisher. Some of those publishers aren’t even eligible for major literary awards, which means no long or shortlisting, no reviews, no bookstore purchases, no second life for the book. Razom’s role is to act as a mediator, helping authors and publishers navigate this complicated market.

Andriy Kurkov, Ukraine’s most internationally bestselling author, drew the distinction that the UK and US markets operate by entirely different rules. The American market is its own thing – more closed, slower to warm up. Kurkov knew this firsthand: his first attempt in 2001 failed not because of the books, but because the publisher did nothing. If a publisher isn’t investing in promotion, books don’t reach shelves. If books don’t reach shelves, nobody finds them. The logic is circular and self-defeating, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the writing. His second attempt in 2018 worked: “The goal is always to arrive and stay. And if you’ve got in and stayed, that’s already a great victory.”

I concluded with what I see as the core problem: the absence of a self-sustaining infrastructure where every part of the system does its job. The real question is delivery: how does a great Ukrainian book actually get onto bookstore and library shelves, and stay there? Here is what Razom is doing about it. We invest in translators as a profession through mentorships, the new Razom Translation Award, and partnerships with leading literary translation institutions in the US and UK. We offer translation grants that are accessible to larger publishers precisely because we don’t require a book to be completed and published within a single year – the constraint that makes most grant programs unworkable for major presses. To date, we have supported eight books; several high-profile titles are coming from major presses in 2027 that would not exist without Razom’s involvement. We also support promotion and, this year, editing – unique among grant programs. And through Chapter Ukraine, we build communities of readers in libraries, universities, and grassroots organizations who advocate for Ukrainian books from the ground up.

Every literary tradition that reached the world stage arrived with a new artistry and language for it – one that captured a reality the world hadn’t yet found words for. The stream eventually broke through its geographical borders and became universal. Ukrainian literature has already formed that language: raw honesty, fragile heroism, self-reliance, a direct way of looking at what most literature looks away from. The current is moving. Is the American reader ready to meet it?

_______________________________________________________________________

P.S. As I am finishing this letter, the news came in: Russia struck the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra – the 11th-century cathedral that is a UNESCO World Heritage site – setting its roof on fire while monks and rescue workers formed human chains to save the icons. As firefighters were still battling the blaze, a second strike hit Mystetskyi Arsenal, the building where Book Arsenal takes place. The Dovzhenko National Film Studio was also hit, destroying Ukraine’s largest and oldest costume collection, 100,000 garments, gone. Once again, Russian aggression deliberately strikes Ukraine’s cultural heritage.

Beyond the Soviet Frame: How Razom and Metrograph Brought Ukrainian Poetic Cinema to New Audiences

Published: June 19, 2026

In late 2025, New York audiences gathered at Metrograph for Soul & Soil: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema — an ambitious retrospective co-presented by Metrograph, Razom Cinema, and Dovzhenko Center that introduced audiences to one of the most visually innovative film movements of the twentieth century. Across eighteen screenings, the series drew nearly 1,400 in-person attendees, reached thousands more through streaming, and generated significant engagement across social and film media platforms.

But the retrospective was never intended to function merely as a successful repertory film series. At its core, Soul & Soil, sought to challenge a longstanding misconception in global film culture: the tendency to treat Ukrainian cinema as a subsidiary chapter within “Soviet cinema,” rather than as a distinct artistic tradition with its own language, identity, and historical trajectory.

“There’s a version of Ukrainian cinematic history that gets told as a footnote to Soviet cinema,” explained Head of Razom Cinema Polina Buchak. “One of the things that drives Razom Cinema is the refusal to accept that framing.”

Through a carefully curated program of landmark films, rare archival materials, guest discussions, and contextual programming, Soul & Soil demonstrated not only the enduring artistic power of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema, but also the growing appetite among international audiences to engage with Ukrainian culture on its own terms.

Building the Collaboration

The retrospective emerged from a collaboration between Razom Cinema and Metrograph’s Program Operations Manager, Anri Vartan. Both recognized an opportunity to create a program that would move beyond topical wartime cultural interest and instead introduce audiences to the historical depth of Ukrainian cinematic tradition. Vartan was also the curator of the retrospective series.

While Razom Cinema had already become known for presenting contemporary Ukrainian films and cultural programming in New York, Soul & Soil marked its first major retrospective dedicated specifically to Ukrainian film heritage. It was also the first significant Ukrainian Poetic Cinema retrospective in New York City since the Film at Lincoln Center series curated by Richard Peña in 2012.

“The series was conceived to illuminate the depth and distinctiveness of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema,” said Vartan. “For audiences in New York, the goal was to offer more than just a screening series — it was an invitation to experience a distinct cinematic language profoundly rooted in its sense of time and place.”

The title Soul & Soil reflected the retrospective’s central themes: the enduring relationship between the Ukrainian people, their land, and cultural memory. The films traced a path through key moments in Ukraine’s modern history, from the National Revival period through the Soviet era and into works that anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union itself.

Reclaiming a Cinematic Heritage

For both Metrograph and Razom, the retrospective carried significance beyond film history. Ukrainian Poetic Cinema emerged during the 1960s as a visually daring movement associated with filmmakers such as Sergei Parajanov, Yurii Illienko, Leonid Osyka, and Ivan Mykolaichuk. Drawing deeply from Ukrainian folklore, history, ethnography, and language, the movement represented a profound break from the rigid constraints of Soviet Socialist Realism.

As filmmaker and producer Pylyp Illienko explained in a companion Metrograph interview, the movement was heavily censored precisely because it articulated a distinctly Ukrainian cultural identity. The films’ emphasis on folklore, spirituality, local traditions, and historical memory challenged Soviet cultural homogenization and, in many cases, resulted in bans, shelving, or severe censorship.

“Revisiting these films today allows audiences to see how questions of identity, resilience, and self-determination have been explored by Ukrainian filmmakers for decades,” said Vartan. “Ukrainian Poetic Cinema was a site of resistance against Soviet cultural hegemony.”

That framing became especially resonant in the context of Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine. For Razom Cinema, presenting these films internationally was not only an artistic project, but also a cultural and historical intervention.

“Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not only a military assault, but a deliberate attack on Ukrainian cultural identity,” Buchak noted. “Presenting Ukrainian cinema to international audiences is an affirmation of Ukraine’s existence as a distinct, sovereign culture with its own artistic voice.” Cinema, she argued, offers audiences something beyond news coverage or geopolitics — a way to experience a culture from within: “It allows audiences to feel a culture from the inside — its motions, its rhythms, its memory and identity.”

Creating a Singular Audience Experience

What distinguished Soul & Soil from a standard repertory series was the depth of contextualization and the extraordinary level of collaboration behind the scenes.

Razom Cinema provided grant support that enabled the sourcing of rare 35mm prints from Yurii Illienko’s personal archive — materials that had not screened outside Ukraine in decades — alongside digital restorations from the Dovzhenko Center, Ukraine’s leading film archive.

The retrospective also featured in-person appearances by Pylyp Illienko, son of Yurii Illienko, who introduced films and participated in post-screening discussions, offering audiences rare insight into the production histories and political contexts surrounding the works. Composer Leonid Grabovsky, whose experimental scores shaped the audiovisual language of several Illienko films, also joined select screenings.

“These screenings became something much more unique,” Buchak said. Metrograph and Razom further elevated the experience through live subtitling provided by Razom Cinema Program Coordinator Yuliia Haleta, custom translation work, and carefully designed print and editorial materials that framed the series for audiences unfamiliar with Ukrainian film history.

Opening night set the tone for the retrospective’s immersive approach. Before a screening of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Earth accompanied by DakhaBrakha’s score, the Ukrainian Village Voices ensemble performed live folk music inspired by the same traditions reflected in the film itself.

For Vartan, contextualization proved essential: “The way a film program is framed has a huge impact on the audience’s experience and ultimately on their appreciation of the cinema itself,” he reflected. “Print materials, guest appearances, and the technical presentation itself are all integral details that are vital in presenting a film in its best light.”

This emphasis on contextualization extends beyond the screenings themselves. Razom Cinema’s team continues to invest in ongoing study and engagement with Ukrainian film history, including participation in programs such as the 2026 Ukrainian Institute London course Ukrainian Cinema: A Century of Innovation, Struggle, and Resilience, reflecting the organization’s commitment to presenting Ukrainian cinema with both historical depth and contemporary relevance.

Audience Response and Institutional Impact

The response to Soul & Soil demonstrated that Ukrainian cinema can attract substantial international interest when presented with strong curatorial framing and institutional support. The retrospective achieved a 68% average occupancy rate across eighteen screenings, drawing nearly 1,400 attendees in theaters. An additional 1,640 viewers engaged with the series through Metrograph’s streaming platform, bringing total viewership to more than 3,000 people.

The program’s digital footprint extended even further. Promotional content reached approximately 370,000 social media accounts and generated more than 887,000 views, including a highly successful collaboration with Letterboxd that alone approached 700,000 views. Coverage from outlets including Letterboxd, FilmStage, Screenslate, United24, Bazilik, and The Gaze further amplified the retrospective’s visibility.

For Razom Cinema, the statistics confirmed something larger than the success of a single event: “There is a desire and appetite for Ukrainian cinema among international audiences,” Buchak said. “Soul & Soil proved that when the programming is presented with care, context, and the right institutional partnerships, audiences show up.”

The collaboration has already opened conversations about future institutional partnerships and expanded programming opportunities. Both Razom Cinema and Metrograph see the retrospective not as a singular event, but as a model that can travel to other venues and audiences.

“The films are extraordinary,” Buchak reflected, “but audiences need a frame to receive them. Razom Cinema is here to help build that frame in collaboration with any institution ready to open their doors to the power that Ukrainian cinema offers.”

Russia Is Not Only Attacking People. It Is Attacking Ukraine’s Memory, Culture, and Identity.

Published: June 16, 2026

On the night of June 15, Russia launched one of its largest attacks in recent months.

More than 70 missiles and 611 Russian-Iranian drones were fired across Ukraine, with over 60 missiles targeting Kyiv.

The attack once again claimed civilian lives and caused extensive damage to residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure. But its consequences extend far beyond physical destruction.

An Attack on the Heart of Ukraine’s Faith, Culture, and History

That same night, Russia struck something that cannot be quickly rebuilt or replaced.

Ukraine’s cultural heritage came under attack.

One of the most painful symbols of this assault was the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Founded in 1051, the Lavra is one of Europe’s oldest monastic complexes and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For nearly a thousand years, it has remained a spiritual, historical, and cultural center of Ukraine.

For millions of Ukrainians, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is far more than an architectural landmark. Generations have come here to pray, seek comfort, celebrate life’s milestones, and preserve a connection to their history. The site houses sacred relics, manuscripts, religious artworks, and centuries of cultural memory.

As a result of Russia’s attack, parts of the Lavra complex were damaged, and a fire broke out in the Dormition Cathedral.

“Once again, we see these barbaric acts committed by Russians, for whom nothing is sacred. It is horrifying that while calling themselves Christians, they strike at the very heart of our people. Once again, this reveals exactly who we are dealing with,” said the Vicar of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra following the attack.

The damage to the Lavra serves as another reminder that this war is not only directed against Ukrainian cities and communities.

It is directed against Ukrainian identity itself.

Culture Under Fire

During the same attack, Russia damaged Mystetskyi Arsenal, one of Ukraine’s most important cultural institutions. The Arsenal hosts international exhibitions, educational programs, major artistic initiatives, and the country’s largest annual book festival.

Reflecting on the attack, Mystetskyi Arsenal Director General Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta drew a striking historical parallel:

“It is remarkable that the Russian drone struck the exact same location that was hit by a Nazi bomb during World War II. It is some kind of mystical coincidence — perhaps the souls of aggressors united?”

Russian strikes also damaged the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Film Studio, the birthplace of Ukrainian cinema.

According to the studio’s officials, its primary costume archive was destroyed. Approximately 100,000 costumes and priceless archival materials documenting decades of Ukrainian film history were lost.

“Costumes from such iconic films as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, The Lost Letter, and Bohdan Khmelnytsky were stored here. Now this building has been completely destroyed — there is practically nothing left,” said studio director Andriy Donchyk.

Other cultural institutions damaged during the attack include the Kharkiv Art Museum and the House of Organ and Chamber Music in Dnipro.

And all of this happened in a single night.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine’s cultural heritage. According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, as of May 2026, 1,783 cultural heritage sites and 2,540 cultural infrastructure facilities have been damaged or destroyed across the country.

UNESCO has independently verified damage to at least 534 cultural sites, including museums, libraries, historic landmarks, archaeological sites, and more than 150 religious buildings.

These figures reveal a disturbing reality: Russia is waging war not only against Ukraine’s cities and communities, but also against its historical memory, culture, and identity.

They Came to the Rescue

That same night, Russia once again demonstrated its complete disregard for human life.

In Kharkiv, five emergency responders from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) were killed.

After an initial strike on a civilian industrial facility, emergency crews arrived to assist victims and assess the damage.

They were doing what they have done every day since the start of the full-scale invasion: searching for survivors, helping the wounded, extinguishing fires, and protecting communities.

After receiving warnings of a possible second strike, the rescuers left the facility and moved to another location, following safety protocols.

Moments later, a second missile struck near where they had gathered.

Five emergency responders were killed instantly.

Several others were injured.

“One of the missiles struck approximately 30 meters from the rescuers, who had managed to leave the facility and were standing in a wooded area near the fence. Unfortunately, the missile struck directly at those who save lives,” said Bohdan Hladkykh, Director of Kharkiv’s Department of Emergency Situations.

These men were not soldiers. They were not engaged in combat. They had come to save civilian lives.

Russia’s double-tap strikes have become one of the most dangerous and deliberate tactics of this war. After an initial attack, emergency responders, medics, and rescue crews arrive at the scene. A second strike then follows.

The targets are the people helping others.

Since the first day of the full-scale invasion, Razom has supported emergency responders, firefighters, medics, and rescue teams across Ukraine. They are often the first to arrive after an attack and the last to leave once the rescue operation is complete.

Their service is a service to life itself.

That is why the deaths of these five rescuers in Kharkiv represent a tragedy not only for their families and colleagues, but for all of Ukraine.

The Goal Is Not Only Destruction

When emergency responders are killed while trying to save others, it is an attack on humaneness.

When the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is damaged, it is an attack on spiritual heritage.

When film archives are destroyed and museums are struck, it is an attack on cultural memory.

All of these acts are part of a larger pattern.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has damaged or destroyed hundreds of religious and cultural sites across Ukraine. Churches, museums, theaters, libraries, archives, and historic landmarks have all come under attack.

These are not accidental losses.

They are not unavoidable consequences of war.

They are systematic attacks on the foundations of Ukrainian identity and resilience.

When humaneness, culture and faith are targeted, the goal is not simply destruction.

The goal is erasure.

Why This Matters to All of Us

Cultural heritage does not belong to one nation alone.

When a UNESCO World Heritage Site is damaged, when museum collections are destroyed, or when irreplaceable archives are lost, humanity loses a part of its shared history.

That is why protecting Ukrainian culture is not solely a Ukrainian issue.

It is a matter of preserving memory, history, and values that transcend borders.

At Razom, we work every day to ensure that Ukrainian stories continue to be seen, heard, and understood around the world. We document attacks on Ukrainian culture, amplify the voices of those defending their communities, and ensure that the world does not look away from efforts to erase an entire nation’s heritage.

Today, we honor the memory of the five DSNS rescuers who lost their lives while serving others.

We also remind the world of the churches, museums, archives, and cultural institutions that Russia continues to attack.

Ukraine continues to resist.
And as long as there are people saving lives, preserving culture, and telling the truth, Ukraine can never be erased.

Crimea Is Memory, Culture, and Resistance: Explore Crimean Tatar Voices This Remembrance Day

Published: May 5, 2026

Every year on May 18, Ukraine commemorates the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide — a day that honors the lives lost and the resilience of an indigenous people whose history continues to shape Ukraine today.

In 1944, the Soviet regime forcibly deported the entire Crimean Tatar population from their homeland. Families were given minutes to gather their belongings before being loaded onto trains and sent to remote regions. Tens of thousands perished due to starvation, disease, and inhumane conditions. These events are now recognized as genocide.

Since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014 — and especially after the full-scale invasion in 2022 — Crimean Tatars have once again faced repression, arrests, and persecution. Today, remembrance is not only about the past. It is about an ongoing struggle for rights, identity, and the right to live freely on their land. This day invites us not only to remember, but to learn — to engage with Crimean Tatar culture, language, and history in ways that deepen understanding and solidarity. Below is a curated selection of resources to help you begin.

Crimea: History and People (Online Course)

Explore HERE.

A comprehensive course exploring Crimea through the perspective of its indigenous people. Led by scholars and experts, it covers history, identity, and the political realities shaping the region today — offering a deeper understanding of both past and present.

Crimea: History and People (Ukrainian Institute)

Explore HERE.

A free, English-language course featuring 12 video lectures on Crimean Tatar history, culture, and their long struggle to return home. Ideal for anyone looking for a structured, accessible introduction to Crimea beyond headlines.

Qırım: Crimea Is Us (Prometheus Course)

Explore HERE.

This Ukrainian-language course challenges stereotypes and reframes Crimea as a story of people, identity, and resistance. It explores the place of Crimea and Crimean Tatars in Ukraine’s past, present, and future through a thoughtful, reflective lens.

“Ukrayinanıñ İçinden” by Ukraїner

Explore HERE.

A cultural exploration of Ukraine that includes perspectives and stories reflecting the diversity of its regions and peoples, including Crimea. A visually rich and narrative-driven entry point into Ukrainian identity.

“The Crimean Tatar Nation in Great Works of Art”

Explore HERE.

This academic work examines global art as historical evidence of Crimean Tatar presence and identity. By analyzing paintings as primary sources, authors Zera K. Mustafaieva and Zarema K. Mustafaieva offer a unique and rigorous approach to understanding indigenous history through visual culture.

“There Is Land Beyond the Perekop”

Explore HERE.

A novel weaving personal and historical narratives, tracing generations shaped by deportation, repression, and resilience. Through storytelling, it explores identity, belonging, and the enduring impact of Crimean Tatar culture.

Bulbul (Crimean Tatar Learning Platform)

Explore HERE.

A multimedia platform designed for young children — but equally valuable for beginners of any age. Featuring songs, stories, cartoons, and a dictionary with audio pronunciation, it’s a gentle and engaging introduction to the language.

Qırım Ailesi (YouTube Playlist)

Explore HERE.

A collection of Crimean Tatar fairy tales and legends told in the original language. Listening to these stories offers a powerful way to connect with cultural traditions and hear the rhythm of the language firsthand.

Engaging with Crimean Tatar culture is not just about learning history — it is about recognizing a living, resilient people whose identity has survived displacement, repression, and attempted erasure. Culture carries memory. Language carries belonging. Stories carry truth. When we read, listen, and learn, we help ensure that these voices are not silenced — that Crimea is understood not as an abstract territory, but as a homeland with a deep and complex human story.

This May 18, remembrance can include curiosity and a step toward deeper solidarity. Because to truly stand with Ukraine, we must also know Crimea — and the people who have always called it home.

The Chornobyl Legacy: Honoring the 40th Anniversary of the Disaster

Published: April 26, 2026

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, a milestone recognized by the United Nations as International Chornobyl Disaster Remembrance Day. On April 26, 1986, the explosion at Reactor No. 4 in Soviet-controlled Ukraine became the world’s worst nuclear accident, unleashing a torrent of radiation that forever altered millions of lives and reshaped global consciousness.

Four decades later, history does not remain in the past. The Razom team has curated a selection of essential cultural works that have helped the world process this trauma. Through the lens of cinema, art, and literature, these creators ensure that Chornobyl is never forgotten. They remind us that while the Zone may be silent, its story is still being written.

Performing Arts

Archaeological Opera: Chornobyldorf

Created in 2020 by composers Roman Grygoriv and Illia Razumeiko, Chornobyldorf stands as arguably the most internationally acclaimed contemporary Ukrainian performing arts work on the subject of nuclear catastrophe.

Framed as an “archaeological opera,” it depicts the descendants of humanity navigating a post-apocalyptic world. Wandering among the ruins of nuclear power plants, abandoned churches, and decaying galleries, these survivors attempt to piece together the fragments of a lost civilization through surreal performance rituals.

Watch

The Chornobyl Songs Project

Released via Smithsonian Folkways, the project – titled Living Culture from a Lost World – is a monumental effort to recreate centuries-old Polissian village traditions. The collection features harvest songs, wedding melodies, and ancient church carols, all reconstructed from field recordings made just before the 1986 disaster forced these ancient communities to abandon their ancestral lands.

By breathing new life into these “captured” sounds, Ensemble Hilka ensures that the cultural identity of the Polissia region survives, even as the villages themselves remain empty.

Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple Music

Literature

In “Chornobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe,”Plokhy draws on recently declassified sources to chronicle the 1986 explosion. He “mercilessly chronicles the absurdities of the Soviet system” (Wall Street Journal), tracing the disaster to the flaws of authoritarian rule and a regime that prioritized economic goals over human safety. It remains a vivid, empathetic tribute to the firefighters and scientists who extinguished the nuclear inferno.

Plokhy continues this narrative in his latest book, “Chernobyl Roulette.” He recounts the harrowing 35-day Russian occupation of the plant during the 2022 full-scale invasion. This “real-life thriller” follows the Ukrainian staff held hostage who worked grueling, weeks-long shifts to prevent a new catastrophe. From the veteran foreman Valentyn Heiko to the workers who maintained safety under the shadow of Russian tanks, Plokhy sounds an urgent alarm about the unprecedented dangers facing nuclear sites in wartime.

Stalking the Atomic City: Life Among the Decadent and the Depraved of Chornobyl by Markiyan Kamysh
Translated by Hanna Leliv & Reilly Costigan-Humes

Since the 1986 disaster, Chornobyl has remained a forbidden wasteland that exerts a magnetic pull on “stalkers” – illegal adventurers who treat the barbed wire as a pilgrimage. Markiyan Kamysh offers a “gonzo” guide to this dystopian reality, introducing readers to the thieves, police, and romantic utopists who inhabit the Zone despite its toxic legacy.

Featuring photographs that may be the last images of the site’s desolate beauty before the 2022 Russian occupation, Kamysh’s brash and bold prose captures Chornobyl’s timeless, alien elegance.

Buy and read

Chornobyl, Life, and Other Disasters: A Graphic Memoir
By Yevgenia Nayberg

In this salient and slyly funny graphic memoir, Yevgenia “Genya” Nayberg recounts her childhood in 1980s Ukraine. As Genya dreams of attending a prestigious art school, she navigates the absurdities of Soviet control, the paranoia of the Cold War, and systemic antisemitism. Her world shifts forever on April 26, 1986, when a neighbor is called to a town she’s never heard of: Chornobyl. It is a deeply personal story of artistic perseverance and a rare glimpse into the life of the Soviet intelligentsia during a national catastrophe.

Buy and read

The Post-Chornobyl Library
By Tamara Hundorova
Translated by Hanna Leliv & Reilly Costigan-Humes

Tamara Hundorova explores how the Chornobyl disaster not only marked the end of the Soviet Union but also birthed a new era of Ukrainian literature. Using the “Post-Chornobyl Library” as a metaphor, Hundorova analyzes how the 1990s generation used postmodernism, irony, and “apocalyptic carnival” to process nuclear trauma. This scholarly work tracks the decolonization of Ukrainian culture as writers broke totalitarian taboos, filled historical gaps, and liberated themselves from a fractured past to enter a new, globalized landscape.

Buy and read

Cinema

Chornobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks, 1988
Volodymyr Shevchenko

On April 26, 1986, reactor four at the Chornobyl nuclear power station exploded, releasing a massive radioactive cloud over Northern Ukraine and Belarus. The danger was kept secret from the public. Only two film crews, including one from the Ukrainian studio of chronicle and documentary films (Ukrkinokhronika) led by director Volodymyr Shevchenko, managed to get access. They arrived on May 14, 1986, and spent the next hundred days documenting the efforts of firefighters, engineers, military personnel, and dosimetrists dealing with the aftermath of the explosion.

Streaming

Ten Years of Alienation, 1997
Serhii Bukovskyi

Originally filmed as a series of daily dispatches for the 10th anniversary of the disaster, this documentary explores the physical and emotional state of the Zone. Bukovskyi captures the life of the “settlers” – those who refused to leave their homes despite the radiation – showcasing a deep-rooted Ukrainian connection to one’s birthplace.

Heavy Water: A Film for Chornobyl, 2007
David Bickerstaff & Phil Grabsky

Based on Mario Petrucci’s award-winning poetry, this moving film bypasses technical details to focus on the human cost. Unflinching archival footage of the ghost-town Pripyat is woven with location shots from inside the destroyed reactor, giving voice to the liquidators and families who dealt with the disaster at ground level.

Trailer

The Gateway, 2017
Volodymyr Tykhyi

Blending horror with magical realism, this film follows a family living illegally in the Exclusion Zone. Led by the mystic grandma Prisya, who claims to befriend mythological creatures, a supernatural warning of an impending catastrophe disrupts the family’s quiet, dystopian life.

Trailer

Special Operation, 2026
Oleksiy Radynskyi

An “almost disembodied” examination of military logic, this film uses CCTV footage from the 2022 Russian occupation of the Chornobyl plant. By documenting the reckless military base established at the radioactive site, Radynskyi presents each shot as forensic evidence of a modern war crime and nuclear terror.

Trailer

Photography & Visual Arts

Ukrainian photojournalist Igor Kostin created the photo story “Chornobyl” in the wake of the accident at the power plant on April 26, 1986. Over the course of a year, he documented the aftermath of the disaster, enduring radiation exposure that was five times above the permissible limit. His work received recognition at the World Press Photo competition in 1987.

Ukrainian photojournalist Viktor Marushchenko was among the first to break through bureaucratic barriers to document the Chornobyl tragedy. Over the decade, he persistently returned to the exclusion zone, recording life there despite the unimaginable circumstances. In 2001, his extensive Chornobyl archive was included in the central exhibit of the 49th Venice Biennale, curated by Harald Szeemann.

Maria Prymachenko was a Ukrainian folk artist known for her naïve art. A self-taught painter from the village of Bolotnia, near Chornobyl, she began her career with embroidery and gained international recognition later on. Friends recalled that Maria had nightmares about the impending disaster before the fourth reactor explosion. The tragedy deeply influenced her art, particularly in her magical beasts. Furthermore, her family suffered personally as her nephew, Valerii Khodymchyk, a station worker, was killed during the accident, and she dedicated several paintings to his memory.

Untitled project from Chornobyl, Maksym Dondyuk

Since 2016, Maksym Dondiuk has been working on “Untitled Project from Chernobyl,” a photographic research project that combines his images with archival materials found in the Chornobyl restricted areas. This series explores memory, territory, atomic energy, and nature. Initially reflecting on the emptiness of abandoned land, Dondiuk’s work evolved into a deeper investigation of the past, revealing fragments of life in the Chornobyl area before the nuclear disaster, including old films, photographs, postcards, and letters exposed to nature and radiation.

Painting and monumental art

The Chornobyl disaster significantly influenced a generation of Ukrainian painters from the late 1980s to the 2000s, leading to the emergence of dystopian art reflecting nuclear pollution. Notable artists include Heorhii Senchenko, Yurii Nikitin, Oleksandr Roitburd, and Khrystyna Katrakis, who used various techniques from iconography to postmodern collage.

One remarkable piece is Aleliaksandr Kishchanka’s tapestry “Chornobyl,” gifted to the United Nations to commemorate international cooperation after the explosion. The exclusion zone has also become a canvas for street artists, with abandoned buildings in Prypiat attracting both anonymous graffiti and renowned muralists.

Notable works include Guido van Helten’s mural inspired by Ihor Kostin’s photograph of a liquidator and Pantonio’s mural of blue rabbits.

Razom Recommends May 2026

Published: April 14, 2026

May carries a sense of forward motion — longer days, new energy, and a natural pull toward what lies ahead. It’s a time to gather, to create, and to stay connected.

This month’s Razom Recommends highlights events that reflect that spirit, offering ways to engage with Ukrainian culture while looking toward the future with intention and hope.

1 May| 7:00 PM| NYC

Concert Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Chornobyl Catastrophe

The Young Performers Foundation, under the patronage of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations, presents a musical tribute commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl catastrophe. Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv and pianists Steven Beck and Pavlo Gintov perform a deeply expressive program. Through evocative melodies and dynamic arrangements, this concert honors the 1986 tragedy while celebrating the vibrant and enduring legacy of Ukraine’s musical heritage. All proceeds go directly toward supporting Ukrainian culture.

🔗More HERE.

2 May | 6:00 PM | Chicago

7 May | 6:00 PM | Washington, DC

9 May | 6:00 PM | NYC

Across the Ocean: United in Support of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

The Kyiv-Mohyla Foundation of America invites you to a special benefit celebration in support of the next generation of Ukrainian students at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Taking place across three cities, this event brings communities together in a shared commitment to education, resilience, and Ukraine’s future. Join an evening of connection and purpose as we stand united in supporting young scholars shaping the country’s tomorrow.

🔗More HERE.

7–10 May | NYC

Ukrainian Drama Showcase

Presented by Razom for Ukraine, the Ukrainian Drama Showcase is a four-day festival of staged readings highlighting classic and contemporary Ukrainian plays. Featuring six works performed multiple times throughout the weekend, the festival invites audiences to engage with Ukrainian theater in a dynamic, accessible format. Join for a single reading or immerse yourself in the full experience as these powerful texts come to life on stage.

🔗More HERE.

8 May | 7:00 PM | NYC

78th Anniversary Celebration

The Ukrainian Institute of America invites you to its 78th Anniversary Celebration — an elegant evening honoring the organization’s longstanding commitment to Ukrainian culture and community. Join for a special gathering that brings together supporters, artists, and friends to celebrate legacy, continuity, and the enduring presence of Ukraine in the cultural life of New York.

🔗More HERE.

11 May | 7:00 PM | NYC

Enduring Voices: Rzewski and Sylvestrov

Music at the Institute presents an evening with Van Cliburn Gold Medalist Vadym Kholodenko and violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv, featuring works by Frederic Rzewski and Valentyn Sylvestrov. This powerful program brings together two distinctive musical voices, reflecting on history, memory, and expression through contemporary composition. The concert will be preceded by a talk from musicologist Peter J. Schmelz, offering deeper insight into Soviet-era music and its legacy.

🔗More HERE.

12–24 May | NYC

Distortion / Memory / Resilience — Giles Duley: A New Perspective

Photographer and Legacy of War Foundation founder Giles Duley presents a powerful new exhibition reflecting on two decades of documenting conflict and its human impact. Blending photography, memory, and immersive installations — including a recreated Ukrainian child’s room — the show explores how war shapes lives across time and place. On view at Sutton Tower, this deeply personal exhibition invites viewers to reflect on resilience, connection, and the shared human stories at the heart of conflict.

More HERE.

13 May – 6 June | NYC
Through Her Eyes: War Photography Exhibition
Through Her Eyes is a powerful photography exhibition featuring six Ukrainian women documenting Russia’s war from the front lines since the earliest days of the full-scale invasion. Presented by the American Ukraine Committee, the exhibition offers a deeply personal and unfiltered perspective on war, resilience, and lived experience. On view at the Isabel Sullivan Gallery, the exhibition is free and open to the public.

21 May | 6:30 PM | NYC

Books at the Institute: James Verini in Conversation with Sebastian Junger

Books at the Institute hosts an evening with award-winning journalist James Verini for the New York launch of The Theater: Courage and Survival in the Defining Atrocity of the Ukraine War. In conversation with Sebastian Junger, Verini will discuss reporting from the front lines and the human stories behind one of the war’s most defining moments. The event will be followed by a book signing and light reception.

More HERE.

30 May | 6:30 PM | Chicago

The Enduring Legacy of Ukrainian Art

The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art invites you to its annual Benefit Gala, The Enduring Legacy of Ukrainian Art: Honoring the past. Inspiring the future. This special evening brings together community, culture, and philanthropy to celebrate Ukraine’s artistic heritage while supporting the next chapter of its creative expression. Join for cocktails, dinner, and an inspiring program dedicated to preserving and advancing Ukrainian art.

🔗More HERE.

As the seasons change, our commitment cannot. We invite you to stay engaged, stay informed, and keep your attention on Ukraine — not only in moments of crisis, but in the ongoing work of resilience, culture, and rebuilding. Your continued interest, presence, and support matter more than ever.