Stories

Nazar Fedorak

The Small Center of the World enables the cultivation of a culture rooted in ritualized time. While bringing individual fulfillment, it also nurtures the community and is oriented toward the Other. From this flows happiness—a concept of great importance in the philosophy of the Ukrainian poet Hryhorii Skovoroda. This is the subject explored by Nazar Fedorak, co-creator of the traveling conferences closely connected to the writer’s life and thought.

Rostyslav Chopyk

The Small Center of the World can become an alternative — a space for people who think against the grain of established norms. Always oriented toward engaging with the world, it stands in opposition to the academy and to knowledge confined within library walls. Research, after all, can become an expedition — a genuine, holistic experience. In this way, the Small Center of the World begins to trace wider circles; from what is small, a universal story begins to emerge.

Olga Bondar Riznychenko

I was born on November 25, 1957, in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region (currently occupied territory). I hold a degree in Philology from Kharkiv University and postgraduate academic training from the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute. My scholarly work focused on a comparative analysis of Ukrainian and Russian Futurism, under the influence of prominent scholar Hryhorii Hrabovych. Since the late 1980s, I have actively engaged in civic and cultural activism. I was among the first to initiate public actions in Kharkiv advocating for Ukrainian cultural revival, the reburial of Vasyl Stus, and the legalization of national symbols. In 1988, I co-founded the Kharkiv Literary Museum, where I continue to work today. I have curated or co-authored over three decades of exhibitions, including “Ukrainian Golgotha” (1991), the first museum exhibition in Ukraine dedicated to repressed writers of the 1920s. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, I remained involved in grassroots civic initiatives, cultural preservation, and educational work, including teaching Ukrainian studies at the Kharkiv Air Force Institute. I am a long-standing member of the Political Council of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and served as senior coordinator of St. Dmytrii Church (UGCC) for over 20 years, integrating cultural, interfaith, and social programs into community life. I have participated in all major civic movements of modern Ukraine: the Orange Revolution (2004), the “Christmas Together” project (Kharkiv–Lviv), the Revolution of Dignity (2013–2014), and later local resistance to separatist movements in Kharkiv. I organized volunteer aid for border troops and coordinated community-level support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Luhansk and Donetsk regions. From 2015 to 2022, I co-led the educational initiative “Rejoicing Together” with students of the Ukrainian Catholic University, providing monthly cultural and civic education programs in frontline villages of Eastern Ukraine. Following the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, I led evacuation efforts in Kharkiv, established humanitarian support for civilians and military units, and launched mobile educational and cultural programs for war-affected communities in frontline and recently de-occupied villages. In July 2022, I founded and currently lead the NGO “Volunteer Association Dobrochynets”. Our organization delivers humanitarian and psychological support, promotes local culture, and implements educational and artistic programs in collaboration with: • Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU, Lviv) • Ukrainian Educational Platform (UOP) • BookForum • Kharkiv Literary Museum • Frontiere di Pace (Italy) I am deeply committed to the idea of “Small Centers of the World” by Krzysztof Czyżewski, which prioritizes community-based development rooted in dignity, cultural dialogue, and local identity. I believe this model is particularly relevant for Ukraine’s postwar recovery, especially in borderland and previously neglected territories. My experience in cultural management, civic education, community engagement, and volunteer coordination allows me to meaningfully contribute to long-term resilience and reconciliation efforts across diverse Ukrainian regions.

The Small Center of the World is a space of encounter — a meeting ground where people from diverse cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives find common ground for understanding. It is a home for difference, a place where otherness and belonging coexist in harmony. A vital part of this work is seeking connections with other Small Centers of the World, building strength through such a network of relationships. Olga Bondar-Riznychenko reflects on this through the lens of her work in Kharkiv, particularly her involvement with the city’s Museum of Literature.

Olesia Danylets - theatre scholar, cultural critic, theatre arts educator, cultural manager, and Deputy Head of the Department of Culture and Tourism of the Vynohradiv City Council

Together with like-minded partners, we founded the NGO Impulse of the City — our own Small Center of the World, where we invest our en- ergy, experience, and hope every single day. In our small borderland town — shaped by the intertwined cultures of Ukrainians, Hungarians, Roma, Jews, Romanians, and Slovaks — we are building an intercultural space of uni- ty, dialogue, and mutual support. For us, culture is not only about leisure, but about shared action and commu- nity strength. Impulse of the City brings together artists, volunteers, educators, activists, and caring citizens. We organize concerts, art actions, memorial events, eco-picnics, literary readings, and workshops for all gen- erations. Most importantly, we are creating a space where everyone can be heard and involved in cultural life. We believe that the true power of culture lies in small centers — where great meaning is born within small communities. Where creativity and humanity sustain us through even the hardest times. The motto of our city is simple: “Vynohradiv — the Sun of Zakarpattia.” And it’s true — not only because of our mild climate, but above all, because of the atmosphere of warmth, sincerity, and openness. In Vynohradiv, people will gladly tell you about their homeland, offer you homemade wine, and support you with kind words and actions. This is a city built not on facades, but on people. One of our community’s greatest treasures is its creative spirit. Vynohradiv is rich in artistic heritage — but equally important is what we are creating today, here and now.

The Small Center of the World is also a matter of returning: how can we bring the knowledge gained across the world back into our own small place, and put it to work there? This kind of path often unfolds organically — as long as our vision seeks depth and does not separate the future from the past. A Small Center of the World can offer courage: it creates space for artists and local creators to share the stage with masters of their craft from around the world. This is the reflection offered by Olesia Danylets from Vynohradiv, co-creator of the literary art-marathon “The City’s Impulse".

Tetyana Pereverzieva

Avdiivka, a city in the Donetsk region, is currently occupied by Russian forces and has suffered extensive destruction. Cultural work plays a vital role in keeping Avdiivka present on the mental map — helping to bring together a dispersed community of those who were forced to leave. For Tetyana Pereverzieva, the idea of the Small Center of the World offers a way to connect what is small to a greater universe — and in doing so, creates the potential for change. Originally from Avdiivka, Pereverzieva co-leads the public organization Power of Ideas and shares here the story of their programs focused on place, memory, and community.

Volodymyr Olshansky - sound producer and engineer, co-founder of the audio publishing house “Audiostories” and the Józef Mayen Radio Play Studio in Lviv

I work with soundscapes, capturing ambient sounds to create original audio productions and acoustic performances. Over the past three years, I have produced a series of poetic audiobooks, sound performances, and experimental documentaries featuring major Ukrainian poets such as Bohdana Matiyash, Iryna Starovoyt, Halyna Kruk, and Kateryna Mikhalitsyna. During my residency in Krasnogruda (July 2025), I was developing the sound project Voice of Antonych — an acoustic libretto based on the life and poetry of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych. Drawing from archival materials, field recordings from Antonych’s hometown in Bortiatyn (Ukraine) and Lemko villages in Poland, I am building a poetic and sonic narrative that will become a documentary performance. This project is part of my broader artistic philosophy of the “Small World in Motion” — an idea of rooted, local places becoming universal meeting points through memory, creativity, and dialogue. Inspired by Krzysztof Czyżewski’s concept of the Borderland (Pogranicze), and cultural work in the Carpathians and Sejny, I explore “small worlds” in motion — through rivers, forests, voices, archives, and live performance. My practice weaves together multiple projects: Voices of Rivers (a Polish-Ukrainian poetry and sound ritual), The Hutsul-Indian World of Paraska Plytka-Horytswit (a poetic documentary and intergenerational village celebration), and Following Czyżewski’s Footsteps in the Lemko Borderland (a research-based initiative to create a new Small Centre of the World in Nowica). For me, culture is not a reconstruction of the past, but a living movement of memory toward the future.

Volodymyr Olshanskyi, producer and sound engineer, co-founder of the audio publishing house Audiostories, seeks out stories of people who build bridges across borders — weaving from them an unexpected map of Small Centers of the World. He works in the borderlands, where such work is both the most difficult and the most essential. Olshanskyi’s sound practice collects voices and soundscapes, creating both an archive and an artistic form that holds memory. For him, a Small Center of the World can only exist through the cultural efforts of a community — one rooted, above all, in work with children.

Tymofiiy Nabykov

Tymofiy Nabykov is from New York in the Donetsk region. As one of the activists in the “Initiative Youth of Ukrainian New York,” he continues the work of poet Viktoria Amelina, who was murdered during the war. Today, his hometown is destroyed and occupied. As he says, the idea of a Small Centers of the World makes it possible to preserve one’s place and build a community that transcends the boundaries of geographic coordinates.

Lina Degtiarova

For Lina Degtiarova, Uzhhorod is a Small Center of the World. As a co-founder of the organization Uzhhorod Modernism, she explores the city’s architectural history. Through the lens of space, she tells the story of her place and its memory — discovering a narrative that is uniquely Uzhhorod’s, while also carving out a space for it on the broader map of the world.

Andriy Lyubka

A Small Center of the World is rooted in return. This path flows from biography and fulfills a personal destiny — filled with meaning and a sense of purpose that comes from working for the community, for others. At its heart, it is a practice: an idea woven with action. Only then does the transformation of a place or region into a center of the world become truly possible. Only then can action with global reach and significance emerge from a small place. For Andriy Lyubka — writer and activist — Transcarpathia, and especially Uzhhorod, is such a Small Center of the World. There, he works as part of the Central European Strategy, seeking a new kind of imagination: fresh and vivid perspectives for his region.

Marianna Maksymova (pseudonym: Ewa Rajska) – cultural journalist, writer, documentary reporter, and cultural manager based in Drohobych, Ukraine

I work in the fields of literary journalism, cultural reporting, storytelling, and documentary photography. I’m a Gaude Polonia Fellow (Ministry of Culture of Poland, 2021) and the winner of the Maik Yohansen Art Journalism Competition. My work has appeared in The Ukrainians, Reporters, Local History, Zbruch, Kultura Enter, Tyzhden.ua, and Ukrayinska Pravda. My journalistic and literary focus includes Roma culture and identity, intercultural dialogue, and local memory. I have taken part in numerous international residencies and festivals, including SpilnoART, FAI- AR Marseille, Bruno Schulz Festival, and Konteksty (Sokołowsko). I am the author of several documentary photography projects: • Romskyi Dim: Community Life in Drohobych – exhibited in Ukraine and Poland (2020–2021) • A House in Massilia – street photography from Marseille (2020), presented in Lviv, Odesa, and Dnipro. I am co-founder of the cultural NGO Dro.ART and co-organizer of the Jazz Bez international jazz festival in Drohobych, alongside my husband, artist Oleksandr Maksymov. I have also served as cultural manager for French Spring in Lviv and the Month of Author’s Readings literary festival. My work bridges journalism, literature, and visual storytelling, amplifying marginalized voices and celebrating local cultural diversity. A small center of the universe for me is the opportunity to sit on my balcony and look at a piece of the game fluttering on the horizon. They are the whole essence.

War imposes new challenges on art and culture, changing the flow of creative ecosystem and the nature of artistic reflection. For Marianna Maksymova (Yeva Raiska), Drohobych is a Small Center of the World. She is co-leading the public organization Dro.Art, which creates space for alternative culture in the city. In her recent work, Marianna confronts the transformations affecting culture and art amid war.

Yuliia Kakulia Danyliuk - librarian at the Kapytiolivka Village Library, Izium District, Kharkiv Region, Ukraine

I have been working as a librarian since 2015. Before that, I was a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at a local school. My small center of the world is my village library – the only cultural hub in our village. Before the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the library was a true cultural space: a cozy corner and an open, welcoming place for everyone, regardless of political views or religious beliefs. From March to September 2022, our village of Kapytolivka was under Russian occupation, and soldiers were living in the library building. They left behind complete destruction: shattered windows, no electricity, and almost total devastation of the book collection and the local history archive. However, already in March 2023, the library resumed its work thanks to international grants and projects. Today, it is a modern, barrier-free space that meets the needs of the community — providing access to cultural and educational events, informal learning, psychological support, and certain types of humanitarian aid for the local population. Our village was also home to the well-known Ukrainian poet and writer Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was tortured and killed by the occupiers in 2022. Today, his books and publications are preserved in our library, and a memorial mural in his honor has been created at the entrance to the village.

Yuliia Kakulia-Danyliuk is the librarian of the Kapytolivka Village Library in the Izium district of the Kharkiv region. She works on the very edge of the front line, facing numerous challenges related to resources, equipment, and safety. The library in Kapytolivka is the only gathering place for the local community. As a Small Center of the World, it brings people together and allows them to imagine a future — while also connecting them to a wider network of places, offering inspiration and strength.

Vitalina Pynchuk - director of the media outlet Ridnyi Krai. Hadyatske Zemstvo Newspaper and a local council deputy

I work at the intersection of journalism, memory culture, and the development of small communities. I initiate and implement projects that restore historical heritage, support civil society, and foster dialogue within local communities. My Small Center of the World is the editorial office in the city of Hadyach, Poltava region — a place where the community gathers, a space for discussing ideas and shaping a shared future. I’m ANNA SABO – head of Communications and Marketing at the NGO «Building Ukraine Together» (BUR). I’m responsible for strategic communications, brand development, media relations, and information partnerships. With many years of experience in marketing and communications in the business sector, I now use that background to take a systematic approach to developing communication processes in the nonprofit space. I’ve always worked – and will continue to work – in organizations that share my values. My center of the world is people and the meaningful impact we manage to make for society. It’s important for me to be useful and to create large-scale changes that improve lives. That’s exactly why I’m with BUR, whose work focuses on youth development through volunteering and informal education. Outside of work, I’m passionate about reptiles and dream of creating a Rehabilitation center for these amazing creatures – a place where they can get care and protection.

Vitalina Pynchuk is from the village of Velbivka in the Hadiach region. At the beginning of the full-scale war, she revived the newspaper once edited by Olena Pchilka during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. For Pynchuk, a Small Center of the World is an act of healing and restoration. It allows forgotten places to be brought back onto the map — reconnected to the broader cultural bloodstream.

Viktoriia Nerush - representative of the public organization “Union of Women of Menshchyna” (Chernihiv region, Ukraine)

Our community of like-minded people researches and preserves cultural heritage. We have restored a traditional clay-and-straw house (hata-mazanka), collect antique household items, and organize educational events and workshops where we pass down experience, history, and culture through everyday objects, clothing, traditions, rituals, crafts, and dialect language.

A Small Center of the World seeks to protect memory — the unique heritage of a place. This may involve preserving a fading craft or a dialect spoken only in a small area at the crossroads of borders. In such work, neighbors from different worlds come together, each carrying their small homeland in their heart. This idea resonates in the experience of Viktoriia Nerush, from Mena in Chernihiv Oblast, who works with the public organization Union of Women of the Mena Region.

Yevheniia Nesterovych (1988) is a culture manager, critic, and author.

Yevheniia Nesterovych is based in Lviv, Ukraine, born and raised in Hadyach, Poltava region. Yevheniia studied literary theory and creative writing at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and wrote her postgraduate study about the digital shift in literature communication at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv under the guidance of Prof. Iryna Starovoyt. Between 2008 and 2022, Yevheniia worked as an assistant producer and PR manager on various projects in Ukraine and abroad. She was also co-editor in the art & culture department of Zbruc.eu online magazine (2013-2018), program director at Art Council Dialogue NGO (2015-2021), and program coordinator at Czech Centre Kyiv (2020-2022), still writes as a critic and author for various independent media. As of May 2022, she now leads the Post Bellum Ukraine NGO team, collecting oral history interviews for the Memory of Nations public archive. In 2014 Nesterovych won the II Award for the best interview in the Open Journalism Competition TEXT. In 2016 she got the I Award for the V Art Criticism Contest at Stedley Art Foundation. In 2016 Meridian Czernowitz PH published the book “Summa”, based on a long-form interview of Yevheniia Nesterovych with Yurii Izdryk. „During the residency, I first of all enjoyed the healing silence and nature of the Borderland. I really needed this open space to look back on everything I had written and done in recent years. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, I have been forced to work more as a manager than as a writer. Some of my essays have been published in Dwutygodnik, others have been included in collections of criticism; but many ideas, especially fiction, have remained in the form of short dotted notes in the margins of the intensive work of building the Ukrainian branch of the international oral history archive memoryofnations.eu. For the past three years I have headed the NGO Post Bellum - Ukraine, and during that time we have collected nearly two hundred testimonies, created two films, an international exhibition and a number of media projects.

“So, at the residency, I managed to conduct an 'audit' and systematization of my texts, drafts, and notes, and I finally had the strength, time, and a very suitable place to work on an essay about the experience of documenting women's oral history testimonies during the war. Throughout 2024, my team and I worked on the project 'Memory Keepers: Experiences of Ukrainian Women in Donetsk in the 20th - 21st Century,' within the framework of which we collected and processed testimonies from 27 women aged 40 to 79 from Kramatorsk in collaboration with various partners for different formats. It was a complex, large interdisciplinary project that involved seven different teams and required very attentive listening, engaged and sensitive processing of materials, and the creation of safe environments for discussing these experiences. It was very important for me to structure and articulate my reflections drawn from this work so that they wouldn't be forgotten and could also be useful to other colleagues working on this and related topics. I begin this essay with an epigraph taken from the poem by Victoria Amelina 'Testimony' - 'in this strange city, only women testify.' Victoria died in Kramatorsk, her birthday was recently; her collection was published in the series 'In the Face of War' - in which, in fact, I found this line to start with. A kind of non-random coincidence - as is often the case on the border."

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