Iya Kiva: "My writing stemmed from this feeling of otherness"

Let’s begin by talking about your new book, “Smikh zhasloi vatry” (Laughter of the Extinguished Bonfire), recently released by Dukh i Litera. Could you explain the meaning behind its title? And how would you describe the evolution of your voice from your first collection to this one?

— In some sense, “Smikh zhasloi vatry” (Laughter of the Extinguished Bonfire) is a metaphor for being Ukrainian—for Ukrainian identity and the Ukrainian world. We’re like a forest that has been burned over and over again through centuries of statelessness, yet our identity keeps sprouting back, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. At the same time, the title raises questions about the nature of war and whether victory is even possible: Can there really be a victory when you consider all the lives lost and the devastation? Can we call it a victory if the war ends here but continues somewhere else?

In both cases, it’s an attempt to think about how we’ll make sense of it all. What will our laughter be like? Joyful, triumphant, bitter, ironic, hysterical? Ultimately, the title brings together ideas of death and resurrection—whether they are possible, what they mean, and how they’re experienced. These themes of peace, war, and identity, which lie at the core of the ongoing russian-Ukrainian war, are reflected in the title itself.

If I were to describe the evolution of my voice, I’d compare it to a river. At first, you’re simply learning how to swim—trying to figure out what it feels like and what you’re experiencing. Later, you start learning how to redirect the river at will, identifying less with the swimmer and more with the river itself. You experiment with changing its flow, playing with poetics and language, speeding it up or slowing it down. Eventually, you come to feel like both the river and the swimmer at the same time, because for a poet, language isn’t something separate; the poet is the language. In writing, you create both the river and yourself.

In recent years, you've been traveling a lot—working creatively, reading your texts, and engaging in conversations about Ukraine beyond its borders. Tell me, what are the most common misconceptions or false ideas about Ukraine that you've encountered in this context? And on the flip side, were there moments when an outsider's perspective, coming from beyond the Ukrainian space, allowed you to see something important that would have been hard to notice from the inside?

— The first thing that stands out is the imbalance in discourse. Often, the issue isn’t just specific stereotypes, misunderstandings, or distorted views of Ukraine, its culture, and history. The bigger problem is that for centuries, russia has controlled the narrative. It has been the one shaping the knowledge about us without our participation, and people have grown accustomed to hearing about Ukraine through a russian lens. Conversations often start with something like, "We’re not really hearing you, but go ahead and speak." I understand that claiming the right to our voice takes time and effort, but I sometimes imagine creating an online resource in multiple languages. This "cheat sheet" could list russian myths and stereotypes about Ukraine alongside detailed rebuttals, with thorough historical and cultural context to explain where these myths came from and what they were designed to distort or appropriate—a sort of guide for decolonization.

At the same time,

I’m fascinated by why certain narratives take hold in specific cultures and societies. What unresolved traumas or issues make it easier for russia to infiltrate these places with its imperial propaganda, like a Trojan horse? Without understanding this, our explanations might feel like addressing symptoms without diagnosing the underlying illness.

The second thing I’ve realized is that people abroad aren’t immune to russian propaganda, even if they don’t speak russian. You can still hear all that imperial nonsense about supposed “Nazism” or “fascism” in Ukraine. When I ask people to explain what they mean, they bring up the Azov Battalion or alleged oppression of russian speakers. It's surprising that the myth of a so-called "civil war" in Ukraine over language issues still resonates with people.

The irony is that the rights of russian speakers are most suppressed in russia itself—they stay silent and can’t even call the war by its name. But it’s unlikely that the russian army is planning to defend its citizens from its own security forces. Instead, it’s far more interested in “defending” Ukrainians from freedom and democracy. What’s truly baffling is how people manage not to see fascism in russia itself. It’s an old trick: the aggressor cries victim first. Yet, I also see this as a reflection of russia’s greater control over information, resources, and economic influence, as well as the persistent habit of viewing the former Soviet Union as a vague, blurry space where only russia is allowed to speak on behalf of everyone.

One of my favorite examples is when people ask, “Why don’t you just give putin all those lands?” Ukrainians abroad often joke in response, suggesting they give up their own basement or spare room first—why not?

The third point is that Ukrainian culture is often not recognized as European in many European countries. However, it’s not always clear to me exactly how we are perceived or the image people have of us. I’d be genuinely interested in understanding this better—not so much their thoughts on the war, as those are typically fair, but how they view our culture, how they interpret it, and how it compares to their own.

For instance, when Maksym Kryvtsov was compared to Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński in Poland, it sparked mixed feelings within our cultural circles. This reaction is understandable, as drawing direct parallels between figures from different cultures can risk oversimplification or make one seem secondary. Even so, I saw potential in that comparison—it can help others relate to Ukrainian culture by connecting it to something familiar in their own.

On a broader level, I see great value in building alliances with nations that have also faced russia as a colonizer and aggressor, especially those willing to speak openly about their experiences. It’s important that others join Ukrainians in calling russia an empire. These alliances could include former Soviet republics and countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, all of which have had challenging historical relationships with russia. Many international colleagues have noted that describing russia as an empire is a relatively new perspective in their countries’ narratives. Viewing russian history and culture through a decolonial lens may be a challenge, but it’s a necessary step toward a more accurate understanding.

In one of your interviews, you mentioned something that really resonated with me: how poets writing within a shared context seem to tune into the same frequency, aligning their voices with the reality around them. You were talking about those serving in the military, but I’d add that this shared experience—this collective feeling of living through the war—runs through much of contemporary Ukrainian writing.

The question is, how can Ukrainian poetry, and society as a whole, express this to the outside world, especially to those who haven’t experienced the pain of war for generations? How do we translate ourselves in a way they can understand? Should we even try? And, at the end of the day, is it something that can even be done?

— I’ve been reflecting on the differences between the poetry written by those in the military and by civilians, as I’ve come to see and feel them. But I fully agree with you:

today’s Ukrainian poetry seems to be an effort to bring our fragmented, disjointed experiences into alignment and to find a language that lets us exist as a collective. In a way, it’s about defining the contours of our new reality and understanding ourselves within it—or perhaps even shaping those contours from the raw material of time.

This effort feels twofold: there’s a yearning for shared connection and solidarity, but also a deep respect for the uniqueness of each individual’s experience. And that sense of “shared voice” you mentioned is very present in our poetry today. Whenever a fellow poet puts into words something that’s been troubling me, I feel a kind of relief—like a weight has been lifted, and I no longer need to write about it myself.

Maybe that’s why I often think of poetry as the heartbeat of our nation. It’s what keeps the wounded, vulnerable body of the Ukrainian community alive, reminding us to keep moving forward.

When it comes to speaking outward, I can explain it with this analogy. Imagine meeting someone on the street with visible scars on their face and body, limping and struggling to move. It’s clear they’ve gone through something traumatic. However, understanding exactly what they’ve been through and truly empathizing doesn’t require you to have had the same experience. What’s needed is an open heart, the willingness to listen, and the time to hear their story.

The real challenge isn’t that people haven’t experienced war, but that they may not want to listen to you. We all know, from everyday life, that it’s difficult to force someone to talk. People can always act like they’re listening, much like children or teenagers do at times.

I can explain it a bit differently. Every day, I see people without legs or arms, with crutches, in wheelchairs, with prosthetics, or wearing a black eye patch over one eye... I don’t know what they’ve been through, I can’t even imagine, and I would never claim to. But I don’t look away. On the contrary, I focus on their faces, on the faces of their loved ones if they’re nearby—and there are so many stories there, so much that can be understood through their silence or smiles. And then I try to picture their lives, to think about them—essentially, I start the conversation with them myself.

I also think that listening to us is generally difficult. Whenever we talk abroad, there will always be a certain level of misunderstanding. It's something we just have to accept. For example, I’ve spent almost 15 years observing how people react to my story about my father’s murder—and it’s rarely about empathy or understanding. It’s not because people mean harm—they just struggle to imagine, to react, to comprehend. But I still share this story when I feel the need, because it’s a part of me, just as the story itself is. What I want to say is that we won’t stop talking about our war just because some people or groups can’t hear us. Our story is primarily for us, and it matters to us. 

When I hear the phrase "we can't imagine what it's like to live in a war," it annoys me a bit. I don’t need to be beaten up by her husband alongside my friend to understand her pain, hug her, cry with her, and then try to figure out what to do next. So, I’m afraid that those who choose to "not imagine" won’t change. I often think back to a conversation with a Latvian poet, who, in 2022, while grieving over what was happening in Ukraine, imagined herself cutting her daughters' hair if the russians came and tried to assault them. This despite the fact that Latvia is supposedly under NATO's nuclear protection.

When it comes to broader strategies beyond simply reading poetry—which speaks directly from heart to heart—I don’t think there’s any surefire approach. We have to keep telling our story, repeating what feels self-evident to Ukrainians, and not get tired of it. In other words, we need to keep knocking on doors where there are none, until eventually those doors appear. When that doesn’t work, we can play with language—finding new metaphors to stir the imagination of our listeners, exploring the contexts of the countries we are engaging with, and finding common ground for dialogue and understanding. We can build long-term cultural exchanges between institutions because, in today’s world, meaningful cultural cooperation is primarily institutional. We can also invite authors and journalists from around the world to Ukraine, as Ukrainian PEN does, build systems to support Ukrainian literature translators, and work on promoting Ukrainian studies. All the while, we must acknowledge that the experience of war, like any deeply personal experience, is solitary and, in many ways, impossible to translate. Everyone who goes through it comes out changed, in their own way, both within Ukraine and outside it.

Do you recall when we were on the train, talking about our early experiences of feeling out of place? Like growing up in less privileged families or dealing with misunderstanding—or even outright exclusion—from others. I find it so valuable to have voices in the Ukrainian community that carry the weight of such experiences and can articulate what it means to be different. Do you feel that your voice reflects this sense of otherness? If so, how does it shape or influence it?

— That’s a good question. I think my writing stemmed from this feeling of otherness—or, more accurately, from the sense that there were no "kindred spirits" around me. I couldn’t find like-minded people or anyone to have meaningful conversations with in my immediate circle, so poetry became a way for me to speak to someone who might be willing to listen, who might want to talk. It was my way of searching for dialogue. Although I mostly wrote for myself and kept my poems tucked away in a drawer until I was 27—when I finally read them publicly at a festival in Donetsk—writing always felt like a safe space. It was a space where I could truly be myself: through language, through conversation. It was, and still is, a space of authenticity for me. As for how this sense of otherness shows up in my writing or poetic approach, I’ve never really thought about it.

But I suppose experiences of feeling different or excluded inevitably shape the way you think, and that, in turn, affects how you express yourself—what you can and can’t say.

This might show up in how I write—not directly or head-on, but from a certain distance, from a place that isn’t fully revealed, not speaking directly as "I." It’s as though I wrap the space my voice comes from in metaphorical layers. That doesn’t make me any less vulnerable in my poems, but it’s how I choose to be present. Perhaps it’s rooted in those tender teenage years when openly expressing emotions and seeking support wasn’t really an option due to various circumstances.

I generally value a bit of space in relationships—even a small retreat, a safe zone where I can withdraw if I feel overwhelmed or uneasy. My poetry reflects something similar—a respect for the reader who might not want to fully engage with its space. It’s not about whether they like it or not; it’s more about not imposing emotions on someone who might find it hard or simply not want to engage in that way.

For me, though, I write as I think, as I feel, in the way that comes naturally. Writing differently—something "simpler" or "more accessible," maybe?—would feel entirely wrong, like stepping into someone else’s body. It wouldn’t be me. To some degree, this connects to my sense of otherness as a teenager: writing "for the reader" (whatever that even means) feels similar to trying to mold myself to fit others’ expectations. And honestly, that just doesn’t make sense to me.

I’ve often thought that writers are often those who, in some way, face challenges with social integration. For them, writing becomes an act of defiance—a means to reject conformity and express their distinct worldview. Socialization is rarely smooth for anyone; no one is inherently equipped to fit seamlessly into a society. Every community tries to mold individuals to align with its expectations, but the ways people push back against that process can differ widely.

Reading is sometimes described as a way to escape reality, but I don’t fully agree. For me, it’s more of an alternative way to engage with reality. Writing, on the other hand, can serve as an escape—especially when the world around you tries to restrict or confine you. It becomes a way to protect and preserve your identity. Interestingly, it’s often the experience of being marginalized or "othered" that drives people to make themselves heard and to seek visibility. In a way, it’s like pushing back against the societal wounds inflicted on them.

We touched on this in our interview.

I like to joke that it starts with a person struggling to connect with others, so they begin writing. Eventually, they become a writer. And when people start reading their work, they effectively teach others their language, compelling them to engage with it.

How do you see yourself within the contemporary Ukrainian literary scene, and more broadly, within Ukrainian literature as a whole? Where do you place yourself, and why? With which literary contemporaries or predecessors do you feel a connection or dialogue?

—  It’s difficult to pinpoint. In Ukrainian poetry, I feel most aligned with the poets of the Kyiv School of Poetry and the Lviv Underground Literary Movement. Then there’s Herasymiuk, Bilotserkivets, and Rymaruk. And of course, Pluzhnyk, the dramas of Lesia Ukrainka, and Shevchenko. Without a doubt, Stus. But listing names like this feels reductive because

dialogue with another poet often happens through individual poems rather than their entire body of work.

There are times when someone’s poetry doesn’t resonate with me for years, and then, out of the blue, I pick up a collection, and it feels like I’m sitting across from the author in a kitchen, engaged in a long conversation about everything and nothing. Then, just as unexpectedly, their world might shut itself off from me again for years.

I approach the poetry of my contemporaries somewhat differently. We’re like trees in the same forest, exchanging signals about the life within it. I’m curious about how those who share this time, space, and language with me perceive and think about these elements. It’s almost like seeing alternate versions of myself, at least in terms of poetic identity. Even when someone’s work doesn’t feel close to me, it still matters to understand how that distant tree from another genus, class, or family lives. It’s about the shared existence in and through language.

When it comes to my place in contemporary Ukrainian literature, I imagine myself as a plant growing at the edge of a garden. (I know I just spoke of a forest, but I see the literary landscape more as a garden—something intentionally tended, shaped by specific principles and methods of selection.) I grow very near the garden, but just outside its boundaries. Occasionally, the wind scatters my seeds into it, and a few rogue flowers of mine bloom there. I’m not sure why I see it this way. Perhaps because I only began to see myself as a writer quite late—at twenty-seven, as I mentioned earlier. And it took another five years to truly find my voice.

Most writers start much earlier, around sixteen, and by the time they’re twenty-seven, they’ve often gone through workshops, discussions, competitions, festivals, performances, and awards. They grow alongside the garden, becoming part of its structure and evolution. My path doesn’t resemble the trajectories of others in my generation, at least not the ones I’m familiar with. This makes it difficult for me to draw comparisons or situate myself within the broader literary process. Frankly, since 2014, my relationship with the concept of “place” and the act of claiming space has become deeply fragmented. Recently, I found myself wondering whether I could ever call Kyiv or Lviv “my city.” I started reflecting on when and why such claims of belonging occur, but I haven’t yet found an answer.

Iye, you’ve previously mentioned how our losses become woven into our identity, shaping who we are. I see this as something that operates on both a personal and collective level. Ukrainian culture has endured profound losses for centuries—and continues to face them—due to relentless attempts at colonization, leaving behind numerous gaps and voids in our cultural landscape. In your view, how does this influence contemporary Ukrainian writing? Additionally, do you think these losses have, in some ways, strengthened Ukrainian culture—making it more adaptable and resilient—or have they primarily weakened it? 

— You know, I feel like all these things are inseparable. Losses shape our sense that we speak not only for ourselves but also for those who couldn’t speak at all, who couldn’t fully find their voice, who left things unsaid, or whose words went unheard or unread. There’s also the painful reality that many authors were not recognized during their lifetimes, and now, when we do read them, it’s through a lens that differs from how they might have been understood in their own era. Discourses shift, and certain subtle layers of culture are lost forever.

The sheer amount of what we don’t know about ourselves—or only know through narratives imposed by russia or censored versions—feels like a bottomless chasm. At the same time, the resilience of Ukrainian culture is astonishing: it resists, sprouting new life even in places that seemed scorched to the ground, breaking through barriers to grow again. But these losses will always remain irreparable. You can only reclaim so much after the fact. If a mother loses a child, having another will never replace or bring back the first, though the birth of the second is still a great joy. That’s how I think about Ukrainian culture. It’s precisely because these losses are so deeply felt in Ukrainian culture that words carry such profound weight for us, and why our understanding of ourselves is so intricately tied to literature.

I often think about the disrupted conversations with other cultures.

Because of our totalitarian history and the repeated cycles of russian colonial aggression—like endless circles of Dante’s inferno—we create from a position of threat and impermanence. Instead of pushing against tradition, we focus on preserving everything we can.

Take Shevchenko, for example: he isn’t just a prominent historical figure but remains a relevant poet, frequently quoted and actively engaged with by contemporary writers. It’s unusual for a 19th-century poet to play such a role in other literary traditions.

To simplify things, it sometimes feels like this: while others write about dismantling patriarchy, we write about the war and resisting russia; while some focus on climate change, we write about the war and resisting russia; while others reflect on the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, it didn’t mark us as deeply because we’re already living in a constant state of war and resistance. This doesn’t diminish our culture, but russia’s imperial ambitions persistently seek to deny us modernity, hinder our participation in wider dialogues, and suppress the growth and diversification of Ukrainian cultural expression.

Then, when you attend international events, you realize how different the concerns of others are. It can be hard for them to connect with us and for us to connect with them because our culture exists in survival mode, while many others (not all, but a significant number in Europe, for instance) operate in a state of thriving. Yet, this isn’t just about losses; it’s also what makes our culture distinct, unique, and deeply fascinating.

From our conversations, I’ve gotten the impression that, much like me, you place great value on family stories and ancestral places—the hidden, branching mycelium from which we, as our present selves, ultimately grow. And yet, in your work, it seems hard to find clearly marked or openly shared narratives drawn from that familial past—or, more broadly, from your personal history, in an unambiguously private sense. Why is that? Or have I misunderstood? Could you elaborate on this? 

— The story of my family appears in my poems only to the extent that it’s known to me—fragments, scraps, slivers, crumbs. The truth is, I never knew my grandparents. My last surviving grandmother, Chaya-Sura, passed away in 1985, when I was just one year old. Some things my parents told me, other pieces I’ve pieced together by reading about the towns and villages they came from and working with archives. For instance, I recently learned that my ancestors were originally from Cherkasy rather than Poltava, as I had always thought. But in my case, there was no direct transmission of family memory from my grandparents’ generation. And we know how often grandparents share stories with their grandchildren that they’d never tell their own children. In those stories lie the Holodomor, the Holocaust, wars, the front lines, labor camps, forced labor in Germany, occupation... Often, I know the facts but lack the keys—the details that bring them to life.

Under totalitarian regimes, my ancestors belonged to that silent generation we speak of so often today. Additionally, family communication in the 20th century was quite different from what it is now. Since 2014, our entire family archive, along with other material possessions, has remained under occupation in Donetsk. I don’t know if any of it has survived.

My family history exists more in the realm of the imagined than the real. So while I would gladly encode more of it, the fragmented family memory in my poems is simply all I have.

As for privacy, I suppose each of us has different ideas about how it manifests in our writing—what its forms and boundaries might be—or perhaps we’re drawn to different aspects of the private. For instance, much of my poetry deals with the loss of home, homelessness, and the refugee identity. For some, this might still feel like a distant and abstract news story, but I can’t talk about myself without mentioning these experiences—they’ve become my new starting point. Since 2014, so much of what I describe begins with “before the war, it was like this, and after, it became like that.”

What’s more, there are few people left in my life who knew me before 2014, and I marvel at them as though they were endangered birds. After all, our memory isn’t just private; it’s also shaped by the stories and recollections of those around us. And ultimately, one’s style of writing is deeply tied to how they think. For example, I’m fascinated by the narrative quality of Iryna Tsilyk’s poetry or the attention to detail in Taras Prokhasko’s prose. But it’s not about whether I can write like that—it’s that I don’t see or feel the world in the same way. I’m grateful I get to observe this diversity of thought as a reader, but I approach the world and my place in it differently.

I think the varying presence of privacy in authors’ texts is like shooting with different lenses: some use macro, others a telephoto, some switch between focal lengths. But it’s all about capturing the private, just from different perspectives.

I have a question for you about corporeality, as it feels distinctly present in your texts and the discussions surrounding them. What strikes me is that it’s often a complex corporeality—painful, marked by illness or trauma. This makes me think about how the physical is always deeply personal, yet at the same time public, even political. Do you perceive this dimension of corporeality in your own writing and in the work of other Ukrainian poets today—and if so, in what way?

— I suppose I’ll share something in more detail now, perhaps for the first time, but here goes. My understanding of corporeality was profoundly shaped by a serious surgery I underwent at 18—a case of peritonitis with a host of horrific complications. Statistically, only 20% of people survive such operations. I wasn’t prepared for an experience like that at such a young age, nor was I expecting to come face-to-face with death so closely. And afterward, I had no one to share that experience with—most of the people around me were young, their lives in their bodies not yet a sum of limitations, prohibitions, or peculiarities.

In my case, though, it permanently altered my quality of life, my relationship with food (eating is often associated with pain and cramps rather than joy or pleasure), and created a need to conceal the fact that my body, let’s say, doesn’t quite conform to the standards for my age. Later, there were other surgeries and other challenging experiences related to living in a body.

So when death appears in my poems, it’s often not some lofty, abstract concept, but rather a way to reflect on certain lived experiences, to narrate them.

This topic, however, is quite specific in our society, and, in some ways, even taboo. You can’t disclose your health conditions to an employer—they simply won’t hire you. In the public imagination, there’s either a state of full health or disability. Sometimes, you’re allowed to take sick leave for the flu. But between these extremes lies a vast spectrum of conditions tied to varying levels of pain, limitations in functionality, and reduced capacities. Why don’t we see them?

For instance, when I was 24, I was attacked on the street, which left me with a serious head injury and temporary amnesia. That’s why themes of memory and forgetting, in all their nuanced forms, are so important to me—and they find their way into my texts. At 33, I fell on an escalator on the subway and couldn’t walk at all for six months. Recovery took another two years, very slowly, with doctors giving me bleak predictions. But this experience allowed me to understand Lesia Ukrainka’s poems from radically new, visceral perspectives—through my own body. That’s in my poetry, too, in abundance. Yet every translator of a particular poem from The First Page of Winter seems to interpret it as being about war. Living for two and a half years not knowing whether you’ll be able to leave the house tomorrow—well, that’s quite a story. And yet, I look socially acceptable: tall, thin, seemingly not complaining or turning my medical experiences into some dramatic social media saga.

These and other experiences tied to the body, to its accumulating traumas and breakdowns, have forced me to practice dissociation from my own body—pretending it doesn’t exist—just to endure the pain or yet another hours-long spasm. Pills don’t always help. Perhaps this is why I avoid straightforwardness or excessive focus on myself—sometimes, it takes too much energy just to create distance between myself and, well, myself.

I deeply wish that, both in literature and beyond—especially considering what the war has done to the bodies of our soldiers and everyone else physically impacted—discussions of illness, trauma, and pain as alternative ways of existing within a body (ways we rarely choose for ourselves) would not be dismissed as whining or branded with shame and inadequacy. We are all different, our bodies are different, and our experiences within them vary greatly. But in the end, we are all human.

When it comes to others, I primarily notice bodily themes in the poetry of women. Often, this isn’t just about the topics, metaphors, or specifically feminine experiences (like motherhood, for example). It’s also a particular sensitivity, emotionality, and embodiment of experiences—a kind of grounded articulation of them—where you can almost physically feel that your fellow women writers have filtered the energy of their poetry through their own bodies. When you mentioned in an interview with me, where you were the featured guest, that your poems are your inner dance, that metaphor deeply resonated with me. I see something similar in the work of many Ukrainian women poets, and as a reader, it adds an entirely new dimension to how I perceive and understand these texts. It feels like discovering a hidden level in a video game.

I’m not saying this is absent in the writing of male authors. However, since I’ve never lived in a man’s body, I don’t feel comfortable speaking about their experience on their behalf—I’d much rather listen with curiosity to their perspective.

I find it difficult to explain why I think about this in such a way. Perhaps it’s because women have had to fight so long for visibility, for the right to their own bodies, for the ability to discuss topics once deemed “unfeminine,” to reclaim their agency, and to recognize the oppressive nature of female socialization. At this stage of Ukrainian society’s development, this may be reflected in how women write. Perhaps it’s also tied to a different relationship with the biological form of the female body. Perhaps it’s both. But when I manage to catch this embodiment in women’s poetry, I often find myself thinking, “Oh, I feel this way too.” And each time, it brings a unique, deeply personal joy.

The overwhelming influence of war on discourse is so strong that it naturally dominates and redirects most thoughts, discussions, and initiatives—particularly in the cultural realm. Are there any topics or conversations you feel are lacking in Ukrainian culture right now? What will be especially important for us to address once we have the time, space, and resources to engage in discussions beyond the war?

— I feel a strong internal need for people to share their vulnerabilities, the parts of themselves where they are not strong, and where the usual response isn't "I am fine." I believe that the ongoing state of survival, constant uncertainty, and threat has diminished our ability to trust others. On one hand, trust in social interactions within Ukrainian society is growing—people trust that if they lose something, it will be returned, and they feel confident sending their money for the military's needs to strangers. However, in private, face-to-face interactions, it has become very difficult to open up—no one wants to complain, but there is also a fear of breaking down and losing one's inner strength.

This also connects to the realization that, at some point, we will all need to reclaim the right to be different and embrace diversity in various aspects of life. We are currently living in an imagined, threatened collective, a “we,” but behind this “we” are many different “I’s.” We need to approach this shift with care, aiming for minimal trauma, respect, and understanding where possible.

Another issue I feel strongly about is neurodiversity. It’s a growing topic worldwide, and I hope that neurodiverse individuals will become more visible and accepted within our society. I also wish that mental health issues could become a broader subject of conversation, leading to changes in inclusive policies, both governmental and social. I want this to be understood not just by those directly affected, but also by those closer to the so-called norm. However, these changes in inclusivity are inevitably connected to the war, as everything today is, in some way, linked to it.

Translated by Anna Petelina

The project "Strengthening Independent Media for a Strong Democratic Ukraine" implemented by DW Akademie in cooperation with Lviv Media Forum and Ukrainian Public Service Media, Suspilne, is funded by the European Union and co-supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.