October 3 (Thursday)

13:00–13:45

"This is war — Ukrainian Authors and Authoresses on Living Through Catastrophe"

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 914

Location:
Museum of Ethnography and Artistic Craft, Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Svoboda Avenue

Participants:
Vitaliy Portnikov, Oksana Forostyna, Natalia A. Feduschak

Moderator:
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Ukrainian journalist, public figure, historian and translator

In person, in Ukrainian

Krytyka, a Ukrainian intellectual journal, and Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, a Canadian charitable non-profit organization, are honored to present the book War Is… Ukrainian Authors and Authoresses on Living Through Catastrophe. Featuring essays by some of Ukraine's most prominent writers, we aspired to provide a platform for their wartime stories. We also hope their commentaries will provide context to better understand Ukraine's struggle for freedom during an unprovoked and brutal 21^st-century war.

15:30–17:00 (13:30–15:00 UK time; 8:30–10:00 EST)

Books about Ukraine in the English-speaking world

Registration to watch live on 3 October will shortly be available on the Hay Festival program.

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 791

Location:
Powder Tower, Pidvalna Street 4

Participants:
Adrian Karatnycky, Sasha Dovzhuk, Victoria Belim, Yaroslav Trofimov

Moderator:
Charlotte Higgins, Chief culture writer for The Guardian

Online and in person, simultaneous translation into English and Spanish

Russia’s criminal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked an interest in the country as never before. Suddenly, Ukraine was everywhere, with media internationally regularly covering the war and political analysts offering insights. More recently, a plethora of books about Ukraine have appeared in the English-language world. In this panel, moderated by Charlotte Higgins, chief culture writer for The Guardian, authors will discuss their books about Ukraine: Adrian Karatnycky of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and the Atlantic Council examines Ukraine’s history and its political leaders in Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia; Sasha Dovzhuk discusses Ukrainian novelist and war crimes researcher Victoria Amelina, who died of injuries following a Russian missile attack on Kramatorsk in June 2023, and her book Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary, to be published in February 2025; Victoria Belim, a Ukrainian memoirist who is notable for her 2023 book The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story; and Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, author of Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence, a revelatory eyewitness account of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and heroism of the Ukrainian people in their resistance, as well as No Country for Love, a novel about a young Ukrainian girl arriving in Kharkiv in 1930, determined to contribute to the future of her country.

4 October (Friday)

17:00–17:45

Discussion: Wars in Ukraine and Israel from a diplomatic and political point of view

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 948

Location:
America House Lviv, 2 Akademika Hnatyuka Street

Participants:
Olexander Scherba — Ukrainian diplomat, publicist, ambassador of Ukraine to Austria (2014–2021) Ukraine vs. Darkness. Undiplomatic Thoughts (Ibidem: Hamburg, 2021); Igor Shchupak, Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies; Yehor Vradii, Deputy Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies

Moderator:
Olha Mukha is an author, philosopher, cultural analyst, cultural manager and expert in international communication and human rights, lives and works in London

In person, in Ukrainian

The wars in Ukraine and Israel last year attracted considerable attention of the international community. With both wars still unresolved, our group discusses the political and diplomatic implications of the wars and the future of each country and what each can learn from each other at this most important time.

Participants in the discussion: Olexander Scherba — Ukrainian diplomat, publicist, ambassador of Ukraine to Austria (2014–2021) Ukraine vs. Darkness. Undiplomatic Thoughts (Ibidem: Hamburg, 2021); Igor Shchupak, Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies; Yehor Vradii, Deputy Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies 

20:30–21:30 (18:30–19:30 UK time; 13:30–14:30 EST)

Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Prize Ceremony

To watch live please register for Event No. 9 (4 October) on the Hay Festival program.

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 790

Location:
Powder Tower, Pidvalna Street 4

Participants: Yuriy Skira, Ihor Balynskyy, Olexander Scherba, Yulia Bentya, Oleksandr Motyl, Igor Shchupak

Moderator:
Natalia A. Feduschak, Director of Communications, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter

Online and in-person, simultaneous translation into English and Spanish

Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize is designed to be based on the common centuries-old experience of Ukrainians and Jews, which has found expression in fiction and non-fiction literature. The prize is awarded annually for the most influential work of fiction and non-fiction (in 2024 -nonfiction) that promotes Ukrainian-Jewish understanding, helping to strengthen the position of Ukraine as a multi-ethnic society and embodying the motto "Our stories are incomplete without each other". The award ceremony will be held with the participation of Ukrainian writer Yuriy Skira, whose nonfiction book Solid. The Life-Saving Footwear Factory won the 2024 prize; Ihor Balynskyy, co-founder of the Choven publishing house; jury members Olexander Scherba, Ukrainian diplomat and author who worked as Ambassador of Ukraine to Austria in 2014–2021 (Ukraine/Jury Head); Iuliia Bentia, Executive Editor at Krytyka journal and Senior Research Fellow at the Modern Art Research Institute, the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine (Ukraine/Jury Member); Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark, writer, and painter (United States/Jury Member); Igor Shchupak, Board Member, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

October 5 (Saturday)

13:00–13:45

Presentation of new publications about Ukrainian-Jewish relations

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 922

Location:
Museum of Ethnography and Artistic Craft, Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Svoboda Avenue, Lviv

Participants:
Igor Shchupak, Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies; Yehor Vradii, Deputy Director of the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies; Natalia A. Feduschak, Director of Communications, Ukrainian Jewish Encounter

Moderator:
Andriy Pavlyshyn, Ukrainian journalist, public figure, historian and translator

In-person, in Ukrainian

Publications of the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies are dedicated to the long and dramatic history of Ukrainian-Jewish relations.

UJE books examine a wide range of Ukrainian-Jewish relations from history, culture and literature. This year, the following books will be of particular interest:

• A new Ukrainian-language translation of A Tale of Love and Darkness by the late Israeli writer Amos Oz, whose family roots were in Ukraine (Chernivtsi: Books XXI Publishing House, 2024)
• Ukrainian-Jewish Intertwinements, a book of essays by Shimon Briman, UJE representative in Israel (Chernivtsi: Books XXI Publishing House, 2023)

The books of the Tkuma Institute highlight the problems of the Holocaust — a classic example of genocide, with which other similar phenomena of history are compared particularly to the modern war of Russia against Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, which has signs of genocide.

A special work is presented by Yehor Vradii — a documentary study of "Jan's Odyssey" about the Polish-Ukrainian savior of Jews, Jan Khodorovsky, to whom the historian dedicated a book.

UJE's partners — Orion Polytechnic Institute and the Tkuma Institute, also present the latest history textbooks, which, in simple language, talk about complex events of the past, the "Ukrainian and Jewish question" in history. These modern textbooks have gained popularity among Ukrainian teachers.

October 6 (Sunday)

12:00–13:00

Discussion about Encounter: The Ukrainian-Jewish Literary Prize

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 927

Location:
Museum of Ethnography and Artistic Craft, Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Svoboda Avenue

Participants:
Olexander Scherba, Zaven Babloyan, Kateryna Shevchenko

Moderator:
Natalia A. Feduschak

In-person, in Ukrainian

The Encounter Prize is now in its fourth year. The books submitted in this year’s prize represent a wide variety of topics related to Ukrainian-Jewish relations in the non-fiction category. In an open discussion, jury members will share their impressions of this year’s books, and what the submissions tell us about the state of Ukrainian-Jewish relations today and what they may hold for the future.

14:00–15:00 (12:00–13:00 UK time; 7:00–8:00 EST)

Genocides in the history of humanity and Ukraine: Memory, Memorialization, and Modern Challenges

To watch live please register for Event No. 17 (6 October) on the Hay Festival program

Lviv BookForum website:
Event number 798

Location:
Powder Tower, Pidvalna Street 4

Participants:
Norman Naimark, Lyudmila Hrynevych, Vladyslav Hrynevych, Sr., Yehor Vradii, Olexander Scherba

Moderator:
Igor Shchupak, Director of  the Tkuma Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies

Online and in-person, simultaneous translation into English and Spanish

The panel discussion is devoted to the discussion of the nature of genocides in the history of mankind — from biblical times, Darfur, the tragedy of Babyn Yar as a worldwide symbol of the Holocaust, to the genocidal practices of Russia in the modern war against Ukraine, as well as rethinking the culture of remembering mass genocides under the influence of today's problems and challenges.

What do we know, and how do we remember genocides in world history? How is the memory of the Holodomor erased in the Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia, and why should these practices be considered one of the components of genocide? Why is it important for modern Ukraine to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, Babyn Yar as a symbol of the genocide of Jews, and how does Putin's propaganda use painful topics to dehumanize Ukrainians? What is the world experience of commemorating mass genocides, and how can it serve Ukraine?

Participants are historians Norman Naimark (United States) and Lyudmila Hrynevych  (Ukraine), Genocide: A World History (Kyiv: HREC PRESS, 2024); Vladyslav Hrynevych, Sr. (Ukraine), Babyn Yar: History and Memory (Edited by Vladyslav Hrynevych, Sr. and Paul Robert Magocsi (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023); Yehor Vradii (Ukraine) about the forthcoming book Odyssey of Jana about Jana Khodorovsky, a Ukrainian-Polish woman who saved Jews during the Holocaust; and Olexander Scherba, Ukrainian diplomat and author who worked as Ambassador of Ukraine to Austria in 2014–2021.

18:30–19:30 (16:30–17:30 UK time; 11:30–12:30 EST)

The Fall of Empires

To watch live please register for Event No. 19 (6 October) on the Hay Festival program

Lviv BookForum website:
Event 800

Location:
Powder Tower, Pidvalna Street 4

Participants:
Natalia Kryvda, Alan Robinson, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Vakhtanh Kebuladze, Oleksandr Komarov, Adrian Karatnycky

Moderator:
Oliver Bullough, British investigative journalist

Online and in-person, simultaneous translation into English and Spanish

What causes empires to fall, can they fall without casualties, and which are the modern empires? Natalia Kryvda is a philosopher and a director of Academic Programmes at Edinburgh Business School Eastern Europe; Alan Robinson is a British economist and political scientist, Volodymyr Yermolenko is president of PEN Ukraine, Vakhtanh Kebuladze is a philosopher, writer and translator; Oleksandr Komarov is CEO of Kyivstar JSC; Adrian Karatnytcky is author of Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia. Moderated by British investigative journalist Oliver Bullough.