Monolatii I. Ethnoperipherality. Participation of the subjects of the Western Ukrainian ethnopolitical sphere in interethnic interaction, interstate conflicts and culture of memory. Drohobych: Posvit, 2022, 576 p.
In his book, historian Ivan Monolatii highlights the "mnemonic figures" - literary images through which Ukrainian writers of the 1930s-1980s, both from Soviet Ukraine and the diaspora, described the Ukrainian experience of twentieth-century history. Considering fiction as a space for creating national memory, the study continues the author's previous historical and literary research From Donetsk to Przemysl. How Modern Literature "remembers" Ukrainian Cities (Ivano-Frankivsk: Lileya-NV, 2019), which was previously reviewed by Krytyka (p. 11-12, 2019). Monolatii titled the new book Overcome Grief, reworking the Latin expression vae victis, "woe to the vanquished", because, according to the author, to comprehend grief is to overcome it.
The book is divided into eleven chapters, which present eleven pairs of "mnemonic figures" of Ukrainian literature, chosen according to the subject matter and time of writing of the prose works.
The review shows that the sequence of internally connected periods of Kysylyn's history is a sequence of decreasing levels of influence that emanated from it. They were extremely limited by the harsh anti-Ukrainian policies of the Second Polish Republic and the USSR and the Ukrainian state's indifference to its own territories in the last two decades.
Announcements
MoreLatest News
-
Research on the Jewish Historical and Cultural Heritage of Ukraine
On 1 October 2025, [the Judaica Department of the Manuscript Institute] at the V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine held a seminar entitled Research into the Jewish Historical and Cultural Heritage of Ukraine (on the 10th anniversary of the Ukrainian Association of Judaica).
[More] -
Babyn Yar: Thousands of Memory Ravines Across Ukraine
On 9 September 2025, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience held a teleconference between Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zakarpattia, dedicated not only to the tragedy of Babyn Yar, but also to tens of thousands of sites of mass crimes throughout Ukraine.
[More] -
Seminar ‘How to Talk About the Holocaust with Schoolchildren’
On 26-28 September 2025, a methodological seminar entitled How to Talk About the Holocaust with Schoolchildren was held in Kyiv. Educators from nine regions of Ukraine gathered to learn, exchange experiences and seek answers to difficult questions. The seminar participants had already successfully completed the online course How to Talk About the Holocaust with Schoolchildren, which began on 10 June 2025, and now had the opportunity to continue their training in the format of direct professional communication.
[More] -
Unveiling of the Stumbling Stone in honour of Petro Chetverykov
📅 23 September at 16:00
📍 25a Beresteyskyi Avenue (near the T. H. Shevchenko Central Library for Children)
[More] -
A Ukrainian Jewish Century
The exhibition A Ukrainian-Jewish Century, organised by the educational organisation Centropa and previously shown in numerous cities across Ukraine, opened in early September at the Menachem Begin Heritage Centre in Jerusalem, Israel.
[More]