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THE KYIV INDEPENDENT: A Ukrainian literary festival in a city falsely claimed by Russia. Article by Andrea Januta

 

 

When Russia illegally declared ownership in 2022 over all of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast – despite never fully capturing or controlling much of it — it only strengthened the case for holding a literary festival there, says Svyatoslav Pomerantsev, president of the international literary corporation Meridian Czernowitz.

Hosting a cultural event in the region, despite the risks, was a way to push back against Russia’s territorial claims by affirming Ukraine’s presence and identity.

“In the eyes of the Russians, we are holding a festival of Ukrainian literature on their territories,” he explained with a laugh.

Zaporizhzhia lies in southeastern Ukraine, one of four partially occupied regions Russia has claimed as its own following sham referenda in late 2022 — a move unrecognized internationally. Russia has continued to demand ownership over these territories and Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014, as part of any peace negotiations.

Meridian Czernowitz has hosted literary festivals across Ukraine since 2010, and on June 28-29, it hosted its third annual event held in the oblast’s regional capital of Zaporizhzhia.

There, train lines that were once packed with weekend travelers before the full-scale invasion now roll into the Ukrainian city with nearly empty cars. Russian glide bombshave made life in the industrial hub increasingly dangerous over the past year. The city’s pre-invasion population of 710,000 has dropped as refugees flee westward for safer areas, and the city has seen some of the war’s deadliest aerial strikes for civilians. The front line, roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) away, inches closer.

Yet in a downtown basement lit by neon lightning bolts, some of Ukraine’s most renowned writers arrived to share their work and meet local residents in a two-day festival to a standing-room-only audience.

“They bomb us every day, but still we have large literary festivals. It lifts people’s spirits.”

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