Dr. Dr. Olha Voznyuk
(International Research Center for Cultural Studies University of Art and Design Linz, Vienna)

15 November 2023 (Wednesday) at 14:00 CET
Institute of World Literature SAS + online

Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82090121934?pwd=GBIG7nyn6x1N0pCMmIZiNxSoGJJsDx.1
Meeting ID: 820 9012 1934
Passcode: 055833

The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine in 2014 has changed the direction of contemporary Ukrainian literature and culture. Modern Ukrainian literature has registered recent historical events in numerous works, which have changed the way of development of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian identity as well. Some oeuvres of Ukrainian writers seek to recover Ukrainian historical narratives “lost” during the Soviet era and which in turn have influenced the Ukrainian film industry.
The “blossoming” of cinematography has created new visual narratives of local and national history in the post-Maidan period. Rethinking the past and retelling the cultural and historical heritage of contemporary Ukraine clearly predominates in recent cinema. Many new films raise questions of the re-establishment and rebuilding of self-identity in contemporary Ukrainian cultural discourse, as well as the European values that were »cancelled out« during the Soviet era.

This lecture presents the impact of modern Ukrainian culture, including literature and cinema, on the establishment and transformation of Ukrainian cultural values after 2014. How does literature influence cinematography, and what power does visual storytelling exert on the formation of sociocultural values? The talk also investigates the factors and ideas which influence the developing and shifting Ukrainian national identity in the post-Maidan period.

Olha Voznyuk is currently a research fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies University of Art and Design Linz (IFK) in Vienna. Her research interests are focused on problems of stereotypes, identity, memory, postcolonial studies, East European literatures, and cinema. Her first PhD, in comparative literature (National Academy of Science, Ukraine, 2010), investigated the impact and cultural legacy of Jerzy Giedroyc’s Paris-based journal Kultura on Ukrainian-Polish relations after World War II. She received her second PhD in Slavic Studies from the University of Vienna in 2022 with a dissertation that analyzed the influence of German, Polish, and Ukrainian cultural legacies on the development of »Galician« local identity. During her academic career she has worked at several universities and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University, the University of Warsaw, the University of Copenhagen, and the University of Silesia. Her research has been funded by numerous fellowships, including from UNESCO, the Visegrad Fund, the Institute for World Literature, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and the OeAD. Her most recent research project explores the way of transition of Ukrainian national identity in post-Soviet time in intermedia cultural context.