The Russia-Ukraine war has profoundly reshaped narratives of Ukrainian identity, exile, and belonging, making it imperative to examine how these themes are reflected in literature. North American authors of Ukrainian descent have long addressed questions of home and displacement, but the urgency of the post-2022 context has deepened these literary engagements. This session will bridge historical and contemporary perspectives, showcasing how literature becomes a space for resistance, survival, and identity formation. The discussion will also contribute to broader academic conversations on refugee literature, diasporic belonging, and cultural memory.
This session builds on scholarship in diasporic studies, refugee narratives, and transnational literary criticism, engaging with thinkers such as Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, and Paul Gilroy on identity and hybridity, as well as Michel Foucault and Yi-Fu Tuan on space and place. It also aligns with existing research on Ukrainian Canadian and Ukrainian American literature, extending discussions by scholars such as Lisa Grekul, Jars Balan, and Sonia Mycak.
The session will consist of four individual presentations followed by a moderated discussion. Each presentation will last approximately 10 minutes, ensuring ample time for audience engagement. The final 15 minutes will be dedicated to unstructured discussion, allowing panelists and attendees to explore intersections between the presentations and raise further questions.
Individual Presentations:
Belonging or Longing? Home Vistas in Ukrainian-Canadian Literature. Marking its strong presence within Canadian writing, Ukrainian-Canadian literature has continuously asked a question about the idea of ‘home,’ which generally characterizes a well-established tradition of ethnic writing in Canada. Thus, the concept has remained one of the main subject matters in Ukrainian-Canadian works since the beginnings of this writing. It is not surprising therefore that “Where is My Home?” is one of the questions that reverberates most profoundly in Vera Lysenko’s Yellow Boots (1954), the pioneering work of Ukrainian-Canadian literature in English. As works by generations of Ukrainian-Canadian writers show, answering the question requires not only probing the concept of ‘home’ as a location itself but also challenging its meaning in general.
Children and Their Lost Home: The Russia-Ukraine War in Ukrainian (North) American Historical Fiction. This paper examines how recent historical fiction portrays children’s experiences of war, forced migration, and the loss of home, reflecting on intergenerational trauma and diasporic identity.
A Literary Frontline: Post-2022 Ukrainian Poetry in North America. The presentation explores the poetry of Ukrainian writers who, following the 2022 full-scale invasion, write in Ukrainian while residing in Canada and the United States. It will also consider how Ukrainian poetry in North America emerges as a ‘literary frontline’ in the context of war, one that is accessible to displaced authors, the diasporic public, and an international Facebook audience. The paper contributes to a larger discourse around Ukrainian displacement, demonstrating how poetry enables Ukrainian writers to remember, reflect, and resist from a state of displacement in and outside of war-torn Ukraine.
Framing the Past: Photography, Memory, and the Search for Identity in Myrna Kostash’s Ghosts in a Photograph. This presentation explores how Kostash uses photography as a lens—literally and metaphorically—to navigate personal and collective memory, reconstructing her family’s past and engaging with the complexities of diasporic identity. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ reflections in Camera Lucida, the discussion will examine the dual nature of photography as both a document of the past and a site of emotional and subjective interpretation. By engaging with Barthes’ concepts of the studium and the punctum, the presentation will analyze how Kostash’s use of photographs reveals tensions between historical reconstruction and the deeply personal, often elusive search for belonging and identity within the Ukrainian-Canadian diaspora.