#  HURI Books Presents: Two New Books by Olena Stiazhkina 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 8, 2023** 

 06:00PM - 07:30PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Pritsak Memorial Library at HURI, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138**  



 

 



 

  
**Book Talk** with [**Olena Stiazhkina**](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/authors/341), writer, journalist, and historian at the Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Joined by translators **Anne O. Fisher** and **Dominique Hoffman**

In conversation with [**Oleh Kotsyuba**](https://huri.harvard.edu/people/oleh-kotsyuba), Manager of Publications at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

**IN-PERSON ONLY**

All attendees of this book talk are warmly invited to join us for a wine & cheese reception immediately following the event.

## About the Books

   ![Stiazhkina_Ukraine Love War](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/huri/files/stiazhkina_ukraine_war_love_cover.jpg?itok=JaSCNL3T) 

 

In [*Ukraine, War, Love*](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/books/ukraine-war-love)*,* Olena Stiazhkina depicts day-to-day developments in and around her beloved hometown during Russia’s 2014 invasion and occupation of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. An award-winning fiction writer, Stiazhkina brings a novelist’s sensibilities to bear on an increasingly harrowing series of events, chronicling them with sarcasm, anger, humor, and love. In this personal account, she documents the first bloody chapter of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Stiazhkina’s diary opens on March 2, 2014, as the first wave of pro-Russian protest washes over eastern Ukraine in the wake of Euromaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, and closes on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of civilian Ukrainian refugees is deliberately slaughtered by Russian forces. Vignettes from her personal life intermingle with current events as Stiazhkina examines ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. She is captured early on by pro-Russian forces while browsing for books, but freed when one of her captors turns out to be a former student. We walk with local dogs and their owners; we meet a formidable apartment building manager who shames occupiers into letting her dismantle and remove their artillery from the roof of her building; we follow a family evacuated to Kyiv whose young son builds checkpoints out of Legos. Stiazhkina documents it all, guiding us with sly humor, dry wit, and dripping sarcasm as we descend with her into grim war. Olena Stiazhkina’s *Ukraine, War, Love: A Donetsk Diary* is a fierce love letter to her country, her city, and her people. \[[Text Source](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/books/ukraine-war-love)\]

   ![Stiazhkina Cecil the Lion Had to Die](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/huri/files/cover_cecil.png?itok=tV8C4kHk) 

 

In [*Cecil the Lion Had to Die*](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/books/Cecil-the-Lion-Had-to-Die), Olena Stiazhkina follows the fate of four families as the world around them undergoes radical transformations when the Soviet Union unexpectedly implodes, independent Ukraine emerges, and neoimperial Russia begins its war by occupying Ukraine’s Crimea and parts of the Donbas.  
  
A tour de force of stylistic registers and intertwining stories, ironic voices and sincere discoveries, this novel is a must-read for those who seek to deeper understand Ukrainians from the Donbas, and how history and local identity have shaped the current war with Russia. \[[Text Source](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/books/Cecil-the-Lion-Had-to-Die)\]

## About the Author

   ![Olena Stiazhkina](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/huri/files/olena_stiazhkina.jpg?itok=7e03h0C3) 

 

A historian by training, Olena Stiazhkina is a prolific Ukrainian writer and journalist with numerous scholarly publications and eleven books of fiction. Until the occupation of the city of Donetsk, she taught Slavic history at the Vasyl Stus National University in Donetsk (1993–2015) and then at the Mariupol State University (2015–2016). Her scholarly interests focus on women's history, life in the Soviet Union, and the history of the Donbas. Since 2016, she has served as the senior research fellow at the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Her works of fiction comprise collections of short stories, novels, and detective stories (under the pen name Olena Iurska). She is the recipient of such awards as the Coronation of the Word (2000), Belkin Prize (short list for the main prize and winner in the category "The Teachers' Belkin," 2012), and Russian Prize (2014). In 2016, she was nominated for the prestigious Vasyl Stus Prize, which is awarded by PEN Ukraine to artists and public figures for their exceptional contribution to Ukrainian culture and for their courageous public stance. Having written almost exclusively in Russian before, Stiazhkina has been transitioning to writing in Ukrainian following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Most recent scholarly book: *The Stigma of Occupation: Self-Perception of Soviet Women in the 1940s* (in Ukrainian, 2019). Most recent book of fiction: *Cecil the Lion's Death Was Not in Vain* (in Ukrainian; English translation forthcoming from Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in 2023). \[[Image and Text Source](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/authors/341)\]

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*This event is organized by Harvard's* [*Ukrainian Research Institute*](https://huri.harvard.edu/) *(HURI) as part of the weekly* [*Seminar in Ukrainian Studies*](https://huri.harvard.edu/seminars-and-memorial-lectures) *public event series. It is co-sponsored by* [*HURI Books*](https://books.huri.harvard.edu/) *and the* [*Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures*](https://slavic.fas.harvard.edu/) *at Harvard University.*

*Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Megan Duncan Smith, HURI Programs Coordinator, at* [*duncansmith@fas.harvard.edu*](mailto:duncansmith@fas.harvard.edu) *at least two weeks in advance of the session.*

*Watch videos of past HURI events on our* [*YouTube Channel*](https://www.youtube.com/user/huriyt) *and* [*subscribe*](https://web.lists.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/lists/huri-events-list.lists.fas.harvard.edu/) *to our email list to receive announcements about events and other activities.*



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Book Talk ](/event-type/book-talk)
- [ Seminar in Ukrainian Studies ](/event-type/seminar-ukrainian-studies)
- [ Publications ](/program/publications)
 
 

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