A Kind of Refugee The Story of an American Who Refused to Leave Ukraine Larissa Babij, Andreas Umland, Vladislav Davidzon

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Babiĭ, Larysa, Author.

Contributor:

Umland, Andreas Dr, Editor.

Davidzon, Vladislav, Author of introduction, etc.

Series:

Ukrainian Voices Series

Ukrainian Voices

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ukraine.

War.

Biography.

Krieg.

Biografie.

Refugees.

Russia.

Local Subjects:

Ukraine.

War.

Biography.

Krieg.

Biografie.

Refugees.

Russia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (229 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hannover ibidem 2024

Biography/History:

Larissa Babij is a Ukrainian-American writer, translator, and dancer based in Kyiv, Ukraine, since 2005. She holds a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, USA, and an MA in Cultural Studies from the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" in Ukraine. She is also a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education. Her writing has appeared in The Evergreen Review, Arrowsmith Journal, The Odessa Review, Springerin, and other publications. She reports on living in Ukraine at war and participating in the country's civic-military defense at a Kind of Refugee (see https://akindofrefugee2022.substack.com/).

Andreas Umland, M.Phil. (Oxford), Dr.Phil. (FU Berlin), Ph.D. (Cambridge), Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm, Senior Expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future in Kyiv, and Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Vladislav Davidzon studied Intellectual History and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York and holds a Master's degree in Human Rights from the Global Campus EMA program in Venice. He has been reporting on Ukrainian Jewish life for Tablet Magazine since 2012; he is the founding editor of The Odessa Review. Davidzon's articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Observer, and Bookforum Magazine. Davidzon is a fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of Jewish-Ukrainian Relations and the Birth of a Political Nation (ibidem Press, 2023) and From Odessa With Love (Academica Press, 2021). He lives in Paris.

Larissa Babij is a Ukrainian-American writer, translator, and dancer based in Kyiv, Ukraine, since 2005. She holds a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, USA, and an MA in Cultural Studies from the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" in Ukraine. She is also a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education. Her writing has appeared in The Evergreen Review, Arrowsmith Journal, The Odessa Review, Springerin, and other publications. She reports on living in Ukraine at war and participating in the country's civic-military defense at a Kind of Refugee (see https://akindofrefugee2022.substack.com/).

Summary:

American-born Larissa Babij is at home in Kyiv when Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Her grandparents left Ukraine amidst the violence of World War II, and nearly 80 years later, she is fleeing the advancing Russian army. A Kind of Refugee chronicles the first year of all-out war in Ukraine through vivid dispatches that Babij sent to readers abroad. In cities flooded with refugees and bustling with humanitarian aid efforts, or while supporting an innovative military unit making DIY drones, Babij examines Ukrainian cultures of cooperation. Reflecting on her American upbringing, she ponders the premium that Western societies—shaped by the traumatic history of WW II—place on security. When she returns to Kyiv, sirens, Russian missile strikes, and long periods of darkness organize her days. This moving account of taking responsibility for your home and your history concludes with several essays on theater published between 2015 and 2021. Written with a fierce love for Ukraine and its people, this book is a testament to the courage of ordinary people committed to freedom while defending their homeland.

“Larissa Babij’s vital dispatches from Ukraine humanize people subject to the dehumanizing conditions of war. In her letters, we meet those who are learning to live and make meaning despite it all, those dancers driven to armed defense, and the IT experts learning to make drones. Babij’s unique voice bridges worlds, weaving together her experiences between the US and Ukraine, between the diasporic imagination and blunt local realities. At times meditative, at others sharp as shrapnel, Babij’s testimonies slice through the fog of this ongoing war, making the existential stakes of this battle for Ukraine clear as day.” —Maria Sonevytsky, Professor of Anthropology and Music, Bard College

“This is a vivid and vital personal account of the first year of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Determined to support her country, Babij stayed in Ukraine, directing resources and attention from abroad toward local initiatives aiding displaced people, transporting medical and military supplies, and building drones to improve the military's defense. A powerful war diary written amid air strikes, relocations, and power outages, Babij’s book is deeply thoughtful and thought-provoking, moving, and necessary.” —Anya Yurchyshyn, author of My Dead Parents

"Good writing collapses space and time—-what's far grows near, turning »the other« into us. »When your conscience says ›Pay attention!‹ and you cannot look away, even though its scary, even though you are tired, even though you risk losing ... something inside you shifts,« writes Larissa Babij. Decades from now, when Russia's savage attack on Ukraine enters the catalogue of 21st century disasters, historians will turn to this chronicle by a courageous American woman of Ukrainian ancestry who chose to stay in Ukraine when others fled. By all accounts, the experience of war with all its urgencies, shocks, horror, and unexpected intimacies is incommunicable but 'A Kind of Refugee' comes close to achieving the impossible. Babij's vivid account of her days in Kyiv and traversing the war-ravaged country, together with a brief but illuminating return to the US, offers a paradigm and becomes an essential contribution to the growing body of what's known as 'the literature of witness.'" —Askold Melnyczuk, author of The Man Who Would Not Bow

Contents:

Intro

Foreword by Vladislav Davidzon

Introduction

A Kind of Refugee: A Journey through Ukraine at War, in Three Acts

Map of Ukraine in 2022-2023

Prologue

Act I

Act II

Entr'acte: Ukrainian Is a Place I Want to Live

Act III

Epilogue

Backstory: Three Essays on Theater

Playing at Politics, Learning to Speak

Resisting the Temptations of Oblivion

Theater on Empire's Edge

Acknowledgments.

ISBN:

9783838278988

3838278984

OCLC:

1446803157

Publisher Number:

9783838278988