Songs about Death and Love: A Ukrainian Writer on Language and War

Volodymyr Rafeyenko is a Ukrainian writer and literary critic. He hails from eastern Ukraine, being born in 1969 in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014. Rafeyenko has written novels, poems and essays. Living in Donetsk he wrote exclusively in Russian until 2014. He left Donetsk for Kyiv when Russia first invaded his city in 2014. During his Kyiv period Rafeyenko wrote in Russian and Ukrainian. He took three years to seriously study and learn Ukrainian. This personal language journey resulted in his masterful novel Mondegreen, written exclusively in Ukrainian. As of February 24, 2022, Volodymyr Rafeyenko writes only in Ukrainian.
Translator: Irena Chalupa is a journalist specializing in broadcasting. She was born in in northeastern Poland, formerly East Prussia. At the age of 10 her family immigrated to the US, settling in Passaic, New Jersey where she was an active member of the Ukrainian American Community. From 1985-2011 Irena lived in Europe, working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Kyiv and Prague, where her last position was that of director of the Ukrainian Service. Irena has worked for the Atlantic Council and was a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine from 2016-2017. During her Fulbright tenure, Irena recorded video interviews with former Ukrainian political prisoners and worked at two state universities training students in radio journalism, which resulted in the students launching radio stations that continue to broadcast to this day. Since 2016 she has worked as an editor at StopFake, a fact-checking website that debunks Russian disinformation and propaganda. Irena is a member of the national board of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America and the chair of the DC chapter.
Discussant: Peter Rollberg is a Professor of Slavic Languages, Film Studies and International Affairs at the George Washington University, and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research Initiatives at the Elliott School of International Affairs. He has also served as Director of the GWU Honors Program, of the Film Studies Program, and of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. His other publications include "The A to Z of Russian and Soviet Cinema" and "The Modern Encyclopedia of East Slavic, Baltic, and Central Asian Literatures." He holds a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from the University of Leipzig.