Iryna Vikyrchak Archives

Confession of a poet after a year of war

If you think of yourself as a poet or a poetess and you are considering taking this path seriously, most likely sooner or later you will ask yourself this question: what can I do for poetry?

Each Moment Somewhere For Someone The World Is Ending

Few weeks ago (mid January it was)* I took part in a writer’s conference with other international writers in Kolkata, India. It was a panel discussion addressing the topic of “Writing for the post-pandemic world”.

The Festival of Stolen Culture

Why would a Russian ensemble choose a Belarusian or Ukrainian name if they were representing an authentic Russian culture? Why do they think that a Dagestani dance can represent their culture? Why is cultural appropriation a core of Russian culture at all?

My Uzbek Uber Driver

I recently visited Krakow in Poland for a couple of days and had an interesting encounter with one of the Uber drivers. In Krakow, just like in other Polish cities, your driver would most probably be a Ukrainian.

Can You Kill the Past?

On the 17th of October 2022, a Russian bomb fell on a building in Kyiv downtown, not only taking the lives of innocent people but also ruining a 120-year-old architectural monument.

The Cyrillic Confusion or What is Wrong With This Year’s Nobel Peace Prize

A few years ago, in 2016, to be precise, I was curating a Ukrainian event at one of the biggest European literary festivals.

Psychotherapy and Soviet Tanks

When the first Russian missiles hit the airports in Ukraine in the small hours on the 24th of February, we all (and I am talking on behalf of my generation of Ukrainians) shared the same emotion.

Nuclear Anxiety in a Poem

Ukraine is a multicultural nation. In this sense, it has never been a monolithic one, and any attempts to accuse it of being nationalistic just make no sense.

Our Daily Bread

In Western Ukraine, we are Greek Catholics, and we are very religious. Every Sunday, every church in Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Volyn regions is packed with believers for a morning mass.

The Echo of the War at the End of the World

Half of my life ago, in 2004 to be more precise, I stayed for one year in the USA as an exchange student. It was quite an experience for a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl who grew up on American movies and TV series on the high school teen life. So I actually felt like being in one of those shows.

Tag: Iryna Vikyrchak