“Writings from the War”: Archiving and Disseminating Testimonials of Ukrainians
18 February 2023
“Writings from the War”: Archiving and Disseminating Testimonials of Ukrainians"
Presented by Alex Averbuch, PhD
Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Postdoctoral Fellow, MLCS
Date: March 1, 2023 | 1:00 PM MST
Location: Newman Centre (St. Joseph’s College)
The talk will introduce the project Writings from the War / Я пишу з війни (https://uawitness.com), which is aimed at collecting, preserving, and disseminating testimonials of Ukrainians about their experience of the Russian-Ukrainian war, so as to provide a documentary source for researchers, academics, students, journalists, artists, and the public in general. The project has been carried out since February 2022 in collaboration with the University of Alberta’s Kule Folklore Centre, where the testimonials are archived, both in the language of the original and English translation. The presentation will engage with the importance of witnessing, as well as methodological approaches and some considerations as to the analytical potential of available databases of such testimonials.
Alex Averbuch is a scholar, poet, and translator, and co-founder and archiving coordinator of the project. Averbuch earned his PhD in Slavic and Jewish studies at the University of Toronto. Currently he is a Killam postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, with a project titled “The Womanly Face of War: Narratives of Resistance and Exile in the Confiscated Correspondence of Soviet Female Ostarbeiters in Nazi Germany.” He is the author of three books of poetry and an array of literary translations between Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian, and English.
This presentation is part of the Day of Solidarity and Vigil for Ukraine to commemorate the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
All-day events at St. Joseph’s College on the U of A campus, free and open to the public. For meal registration, venue location, and other information, visit https://forms.gle/G4hrWxuN3S4phhou9, or contact deacon.kennedy@eeparchy.com.