The poetic witness: Ukrainian women writing through independence and war with Iryna Starovoyt | Literatura 2025
Date and time:
Tuesday 22 July, 2025
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
ONLINE
The poetic witness: Ukrainian women writing through independence and war
NB: registration will close 10 minutes before the seminar, 18:20 BST on 22 July.
In the seventh seminar of the Literatura course, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University, Iryna Starovoyt, will introduce you to the broader context of contemporary Ukrainian literature through the poetry of independence.
‘Four award-winning poets from three consecutive generations — the late-Soviet era, those who debuted during Ukraine’s first year of independence, and the generation who came of age during the Orange Revolution — will give us a lens to see and a pretext to discuss the price and value of independence for people and nations; about Ukrainians’ ability today to grow up quickly, unite, and resist; about the existential thickness of our time; the new profane and the new sacred in civil political discourse, as well as the role and purpose of female poets’ sensitivity and poetry crafted from everyday experiences in these epoch-making circumstances.
These texts come from the place where the sky drops from hands to the ground (M Kiyanovska), and activate layers of chivalric poetry, psalms, incantations, laments, fairy tales, and archetypes drawn from both the ancient world and Ukrainian folklore. We find ourselves in a kind of a religious moment that energises civic political discourse. Within this discourse, a new sacredness is articulated while the new profane is shattered.
We will think about the historical trajectory and the testimonial role of poetry. Powerful work with imagination and language goes on in a metamorphic dimension. There will be a chance in this seminar to tackle this dimension, as well as an important transition in Ukrainian poetry from tragic to epic during the many years of war.’
Lecturer
Iryna Starovoyt
As well as a prominent academic, Associate Professor Starovoyt is a poet and essayist, and a member of PEN Ukraine. You can find out more about her here.
