PROGRAM:

9.30-10.00 Welcome remarks

Constantin ARDELEANU, Senior Researcher, NEC/ Institute for South-East European Studies, Bucharest
Matthias NÖLLENBURG, Program Director, VolkswagenStiftung
Nora KOTTMANN, Program Director, VolkswagenStiftung
Diana MISHKOVA, Director, Centre for Advanced Study, Sofia
Katharina BIEGGER, Strategic Advisor, Center for Governance and Culture, University of Sankt Gallen

10.00-12.00 Keynote lecture followed by Q&A

Thinking Together on, in, and from Ukraine: Frameworks for Intellectual Equity
Katherine YOUNGER, Research Director of the project “Ukraine in European Dialogue” at Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna

12.00-12.30 Coffee break

12.30-13.30
How to support Ukrainian scholarship? A view from the recipients (I)
Roundtable with SUS Fellows from NEC Bucharest and CAS Sofia, and Ukrainian Alumni of former fellowship programs of the NEC (Pontica Magna, Gerda Henkel, Black Sea Link)

13.30-15.00 Lunch at NEC

15.00-16.00
How to support Ukrainian scholarship? A view from the recipients (II)

16.00-16.30 Coffee break

16.30
Artists at the Time of War: Words and Deeds
Andrey KURKOV (writer; President of PEN Ukraine from 2018 to 2022) in dialogue with Andriy LYUBKA (writer; NEC Alumnus)

Andrey Kurkov born 23 April 1961 near Leningrad, grew up and lives in Kyiv. He is a Ukrainian novelist who writes in Russian and Ukrainian. He is the author of more than 20 novels and 10 books for children. His work is currently translated into 42 languages, including English, Japanese, French, Chinese, Swedish and Hebrew. He has also written assorted articles for various publications worldwide including New York Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman, La Liberation, Le Monde, Die Welt, Die Zeit.

From 2018 till 2022 he was acting President of PEN Ukraine, running international and national literary and socio-political projects.

For his novels, for literary and human rights activities he was awarded Halldor Laxness Prize (Iceland, 2022), “Legion d’Honeur” (France 2015), Medici Prize for Best foreign Novel (France 2022), “Freedom of Expression Award” (Index on Censorship, London 2022), “Readers’ Award” (France, 2012), Hans and Sophie Scholl Prize (Germany, 2022), National Critic Circle Award (USA, 2023)  and others.

His books are full of black humour; they are mostly set in post-Soviet reality.

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Andriy Lyubka (1987) — Ukrainian poet, writer and essayist.

He graduated from Mukachevo Military School, Ukrainian philology at Uzhgorod University and Balkan studies at the University of Warsaw. The author of the books of poetry: “Eight Months of Schizophrenia” (Uzhgorod, 2007),   “The Terrorism” (Lviv, 2009),  «40 Dollars Plus the Tips» (Lviv, 2012);  collection of short stories: “The Killer” (Lviv, 2012), collection of poems in German translation «Notaufname» (Austria, Innsbruck, 2012), book of essays “Sleeping with Women” (2014), novel “Karbid” (2015, short-listed to top-5 books of the year by BBC Ukraine; Polish translation was short-listed to the Central-European award Angelus in 2017; Slovenian translation was published in Ljubljana in 2019, English translation was published in London in 2020), collection of short stories “The Room for Sadness” (2016), book of essays «Saudade» (2017), novel “Your Gaze, Cio-Cio-san” (2018), travel essay about the Balkans “In search of barbarians” (2019), novel “The Small Ukrainian Novel” (2020) фтв book of essays “Something is wrong with me” (2022).

The winner of the prizes “Debut” (2007), “Kyiv Laurels” (2011), recently he received literary award of Kovalev Foundation (USA) and became a laureate of Shevelov Prize for the best book of essays of 2017 in Ukraine. He is the member of Ukrainian PEN. He is also the translator from Polish, Croatian, Serbian, English and the curator of two international poetry festivals. He is an active volunteer who helps the Ukrainian army, including organizing the purchase and delivery of nearly 200 jeeps to the Ukrainian armed forces. Lives in Uzhgorod.

This event is organized within the Sustaining Ukrainian Scholarship (SUS) fellowship program hosted jointly by the New Europe College Bucharest and the Centre for Advanced Study Sofia, with the support of the VolkswagenStiftung. NEC also hosts Ukrainian scholars as part of the St. Gallen, IWM and Gerda Henkel fellowship programs.