Olena Stiazhkina - The World of Last Words: Ukrainian War Experience

Prominent Ukrainian writer and history professor Olena Stiazhkina, exiled from Donetsk since the 2014 Russian occupation, will give a presentation on the occasion of the upcoming publication of her two books in the English language, the novel “Cecil the Lion Had to Die” and “Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary”. In her talk she will share some episodes from Donetsk’s recent history that are entangled with her own experiences. She will speak about life in the world of the last words, about the Kennedy brothers who lived and worked in Donetsk region, about a referendum on Donetsk joining the United Kingdom, about a New York where few New Yorkers have ever been, about lectures given to rats in the Izolyatsia concentration camp, and about the choice to be Ukrainian as a choice of love and freedom.
Olena Stiazhkina was born on 25 February 1968 in Donetsk. Until the Russian occupation in 2014, she lived in Donetsk, where she taught at the history department of Donetsk National University. After fleeing occupation, she founded a nonprofit titled ‘Deoccupation. Homecoming. Education’ and switched from Russian to Ukrainian language in her writing. Currently, she is a leading Research Fellow at the Department of the Ukrainian History of the second half of the 20th century at the NAS Institute of History of Ukraine and a member of the Ukrainian PEN. In her academic writing, Stiazhkina focuses on the women history during WWII and on the study of food in the Soviet period. She lives and works in Kyiv. Her forthcoming books Cecil the Lion Had to Die and Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary are going to be published by the Harvard University Press, series Harvard Library of Ukrainian literature in 2023.