This unique collection of essays offers a glimpse into life in and around Kharkiv during the first two years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A Kharkiv native, Vikoriia Grivina reflects on living in a city where days are full of poetry readings and gallery openings, while nights are saturated with air raids and explosions.
The chronicle of everyday life is layered with inquiries into the urban history and mythology of the 20th-century Kharkiv, a look at the city's decolonial processes, new activist communities, and also the re-discovery of the 1920s literary movement known as the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance. The collection also comprises a fictional story that explores some of the darker, irrational fears and imaginations of urban dwellers during war.
The chronicle of everyday life is layered with inquiries into the urban history and mythology of the 20th-century Kharkiv, a look at the city's decolonial processes, new activist communities, and also the re-discovery of the 1920s literary movement known as the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance. The collection also comprises a fictional story that explores some of the darker, irrational fears and imaginations of urban dwellers during war.
"Viktoriia Grivina's Kharkiv essays are simultaneously devastating, enchanting, unsettling, and eye-wateringly funny. Grivina's deep love for her city comes across in the near magical realist descriptions of Kharkiv's urban landscapes, from the careworn courtyards of the residential high-rises to the electric summer storms that rip through the city's skies."
-Victoria Donovan, Professor of Ukrainian, St. Andrews University
-Victoria Donovan, Professor of Ukrainian, St. Andrews University







