# Volodymyr Rafeyenko Writer ![Volodymyr Rafeyenko](/sites/g/files/omnuum4931/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-09/01_Rafeyenko_Profile%20photo.png?h=bc307dac&itok=eIRcuUHe) email laptop\_windows [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/Volodymyr.Rafeyenko/) - [ Facebook ](https://www.facebook.com/Volodymyr.Rafeyenko) ### Scholars at Risk Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute #### July 2026 - April 2027 Supported by the Scholars at Risk Program and Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University ### Research Project #### **A Literary Analysis of Homer's** ***Iliad*** The main objective of this study is to identify the central artistic event in Homer's *Iliad*. The poem's historical and mythological background is well known: it is rooted in the story of the Trojan War. At the same time, it is equally evident that the poem neither begins with the outbreak of the war nor ends with its conclusion. The *Iliad* is an autonomous literary work rather than a historical document. It should therefore be interpreted and evaluated as a complete and coherent artistic creation. ### Creative Project #### **Finalizing and Editing the Novel** ***The Furry World of Appalachia*** This project is a novel set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its central premise is that not every being who looks like *Homo sapiens* is truly human, and not everyone is capable of acting with humanity. In an intelligent being, what matters most is neither outward appearance nor other external attributes, but humanity itself. This theme unfolds against the backdrop of Russia's war against Ukraine. The novel's protagonist is a Ukrainian who has found refuge in the United States. The United States is portrayed as the country that offers the characters safety and the possibility of survival. There, both the characters and the readers gradually discover an extraordinary and previously unseen structure underlying what is commonly understood as human society. They come to realize that this society is inhabited not only by humans. ### Biography Volodymyr Rafieienko is a writer and literary scholar who received an M.A. in Literary Theory from Donetsk National University in 2005. He is a member of PEN Ukraine. Rafieienko is the author of ten works of fiction, three plays, and several collections of poetry. His first literary publications appeared in periodicals in 1994. In 2026, his collection of essays *Spohady pro zhyvykh. Donetski istorii* (*Memories of the Living: Donetsk Stories*) was published in Ukraine. His novels *The Length of Days* and *Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love* were shortlisted for Ukraine's National Taras Shevchenko Prize and have received several international distinctions, including the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Literary Award and the Peterson Literary Fund Translated Book Award. Both novels have been published in English translation by the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The same publisher has also released his play *Signals of Being, or Verbum caro factum est* and is preparing the English edition of his novel *Petrichor: The Scent of the Earth After Rain*, originally published in Ukraine in 2023. Rafieienko's works have also been translated into French, Polish, German, Slovak, and Czech. His writing has been the subject of numerous scholarly studies and has been included in university curricula in the United States. Alongside his literary work, Rafieienko pursues scholarly research in literary theory and hermeneutics, with particular interests in hermeneutic approaches to literary interpretation, the philosophical legacy of Mikhail Bakhtin and Merab Mamardashvili, and Bakhtin's phenomenology and its application to the analysis of fiction. He also teaches creative writing across different age groups - ## Fellowship Type [Other/ Visiting Scholar](/fellowship-type/other-visiting-scholar) - ## Fellowship Year [Fellows for Academic Year 2026-2027](/fellowship-year/fellows-academic-year-2026-2027) - ## Fields of Expertise [Art and Culture](/fields-expertise/art-and-culture) [Contemporary Literature](/fields-expertise/contemporary-literature) [Contemporary Ukraine](/fields-expertise/contemporary-ukraine) [Literature](/fields-expertise/literature) [Russia-Ukraine War](/fields-expertise/russia-ukraine-war) - ## Role [Fellows](/role/fellows)