Ukraine im Krieg

Readings and talks
Halyna Kruk, Katja Petrowskaja, Igor Pomeranzew, Andreas Rostek, Daniela Seel, Ulf Stolterfoht and Iryna Tsilyk

German reading: Marit Beyer

Two weeks after the Great Russian attack in February 2022, the Literaturhaus, in cooperation with the Federal Agency for Civic Education, invited authors and experts onto the stage and into conversation in a long night - still in shock and caught up in the presence of war. Three years later, the war is still going on. It has long-term consequences for the people of Ukraine, but also for the rest of Europe and the global security order. The large-scale Russian war has changed the perception of the country:
We encounter an independent, courageous society, long detached from Russia - let's hear their voices again.

18.00 - 18.40
Halyna Kruk: It is not possible "to write about stars in the sky when there is something more important, timely and topical."
Kruk, born in 1974 in Lviv, is an award-winning poet, writer and literary scholar who has published volumes of poetry, short stories and children's books. Her works have been translated into more than thirty languages; Kruk is a professor of Ukrainian Baroque literature at the University of Lviv. Her speech on the war in Ukraine at the Berlin Poetry Festival (2022) was widely recognized and published in DIE ZEIT. She will read selected poems and texts.

18.40 -19.20 hrs
Daniela Seel and Iryna Tsylik: "I can no longer talk about the war, the painful fragility, all the suffering. I'd rather tell you how my cucumbers are growing."
In the summer and fall of 2024, poets Daniela Seel (Leipzig) and Iryna Tsilyk (Kyiv) embarked on a letter exchange lasting several months under the title "FRAGILE", exploring the question of what is so precious that it deserves protection but at the same time threatens to break. They will read from their letters, a special edition of the European literature project of the same name organized by the network of literature houses.

19.20 -19.40 Break

19.40 - 20.20
Ulf Stolterfoht and Igor Pomeranzew: "The image of the susceptible quinces, bedded like precious stones, resting in the hordes, although everyone already knew in the fall about their fate in the spring, is deeply engraved in my mind."
The poets Ulf Stolterfoht (Leipzig) and Igor Pomeranzew (Prague) also embarked on an exchange of letters in the summer of 2024 under the title "FRAGILE". They read from their letters and talk about the special form of this writing.

20.20 - 21.05
Andreas Rostek and Katja Petrowskaja
How does war change images? How does it change those who withstand it or those who watch it? With her photo columns in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, the writer Katja Petrowskaja has written an almost unintentional but all the more vivid chronicle of the war, published hot off the press by Suhrkamp Verlag under the title "als wäre es vorbei". Born in Kyiv in 1970, Petrovskaya now lives in Berlin and Tbilisi. Her literary debut "Vielleicht Esther" has been translated into over 30 languages. She will be joined in conversation by publisher Andreas Rostek, who will present his new publication "Blick auf Frauen | Den Krieg im Blick" by Victoria Amelina. Amelina has been documenting war crimes in the occupied territories of Ukraine since June 2022. In her book, she accompanies eleven female journalists, lawyers and volunteers and describes her own transformation from author and mother to activist. In 2023, she was killed by a Russian
killed by a Russian missile in Kramatorsk.

Funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in cooperation with the Haus der Heimat des Landes Baden-Württemberg