From September 2023 to February 2024, writers and literary critics will visit cities and towns in 7 regions of Ukraine: Khmelnytskyi, Poltava, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, and Odesa.
The fourth season of the project “Lace. Literary readings in small towns of Ukraine” is implemented with the support of the “Renaissance” International Foundation.
Writers, journalists, literary critics and cultural managers Olena Huseynova, Teodozija Zarivna, Myroslav Layuk, Yulia Musakovska, Bohdana Neborak, Hanna Osadko, Svitlana Povalyaeva, Olya Rusina, Rostislav Semkiv, Iryna Starovoit, Olena Stepanenko, Tetyana Stus, Lyudmila Taran will take part in the project. , Svetlana Taratorina. Project curators are Anastasia Levkova and Maria Tytarenko.
The first trip will take place on September 13-14 in the towns of Yarmolyntsi and Derazhnya in the Khmelnytskyi region with the participation of Hanna Osadko and Yulia Musakovska.
The goal of “Merezhiva” is to increase the prestige of reading in the district centers of Ukraine, to acquaint residents of Ukrainian towns with modern Ukrainian literature, and to include them in the common cultural field with large cities.
In the conditions of the war, new important tasks of the project appeared: to support local cultural managers and public activists, to strengthen local cultural and volunteer communities, to collect people’s stories. The main topics of the events will be the role of literature and writers during the war, talking about the war experience and the changes that Ukraine and Ukrainian society are going through today.
Ukrainian PEN started the project in 2019 – then, within the framework of the first two seasons, Ukrainian writers visited 19 towns in 9 regions: Zakarpattia, Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Chernihiv, Poltava, Sicheslav, Mykolaiv.
The third season took place after the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. During June-November 2022, Ukrainian writers visited 8 regions: Ternopil Oblast, Prykarpattia, Transcarpathia, Lviv Oblast, Vinnytsia Oblast, Rivne Oblast, Bukovyna, Kyiv Oblast.
“Establishing strong ties between authors and cultural managers in small settlements should be systematic. That is when we will achieve the goal of Merezhiva – to activate cultural life in all regions of Ukraine. We are glad that the acquaintances that took place during the 2019 and 2022 seasons resulted in further cooperation. This speaks of the persistence of cultural processes, which is extremely important. At the same time, we see that in the conditions of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, “Merezhivo” becomes a space for support and empathy for the experience of our struggle”, – shares the initiator of the project, the executive director of the Ukrainian PEN, Tetyana Teren.
During the first three seasons, writers Viktoria Amelina, Ivan Andrusiak, Maksym Bespalov, Andriy Bondar, Galina Vdovichenko, Pavlo Volvach, Nadiyka Gerbish, Tamara Gorikha Zernya, Marina Hrymych, Anatoly Dnistrovy, Kateryna Yegorushkina, Mila Ivantsova took part in the events within the framework of Merezhiva. , Zoya Kazanzhi, Kateryna Kalytko, Vakhtang Kebuladze, Iya Kiva, Pavlo Korobchuk, Oleg Kotsarev, Vera Kuriko, Andriy Kurkov, Myroslav Layuk, Anastasia Levkova, Elena Pavlova, Marina Ponomarenko, Tarac Prokhasko, Iren Rozdobudko, Maryana Savka, Iryna Slavinska , Ostap Slyvinsky, Yulia Stakhivska, Maria Tytarenko, Iryna Tsylyk, Artem Chapai, Artem Cheh and Petro Yatsenko.
