Kyiv at War: Frontier, Conflict, and Urban Text

The project (future monograph) will investigate representations of Kyiv in Ukrainian and Russian literatures and media of the past two decades in the broader context of the cultural history of the city and text of Kyiv in the modern epoch. I will examine how Ukrainian and Russian intellectuals, writers, and activists have conceptualized and claimed Kyiv’s history, legacy, and identity, focusing on the pivotal historical moments when these claims clashed. My work will highlight the competitive, confrontational nature of the text of Kyiv, a multicultural dynamic system of heterogeneous narratives, images, cliches that conditions the perception of a city by its own inhabitants and the outside world. In particular, I will analyze a body of popular novels set in Kyiv that reflect Ukrainian and Russian reactions to the transformations of the city and Ukraine in the twenty-first century: the development of Ukrainian democratic society through a series of mass civic movements, the modernization and commercialization of Kyiv, and the growth of Ukrainian national identity and culture as the country copes with its past colonial Soviet and Russian imperial legacies, and most recently, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and attack on Kyiv in February-March 2022.

Faculty Supervisor:

Taras Koznarsky

Student:

Partner:

National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Information and Communications Technology; Entertainment and Media; Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: