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Kate Tsurkan

Culture Reporter

Kate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent and is partially supported by a generous grant from the Nadia Sophie Seiler Fund. Kate co-translated Oleh Sentsov’s “Diary of a Hunger Striker,” Myroslav Laiuk’s “Bakhmut,” Andriy Lyubka’s “War from the Rear,” and Khrystia Vengryniuk’s “Long Eyes,” among other books. Some of her previous writing and translations have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine and, in addition to Ukrainian and Russian, also knows French.

k.tsurkan@kyivindependent.com
For media & speaking inquiries:
press@kyivindependent.com

Articles

Culture

100 years ago, Kyiv's young writers sought artistic freedom. Stalin's purges cut their experiment short

by Kate Tsurkan
A century ago, some of Kyiv's most talented young writers had the idea to push back against the pretension and mediocrity they worried were taking root in literary circles. Yet, with the start of mass repression that began under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin shortly after, many of those writers never had the chance to discover what such a project could have become. The Maisternia Revoliutsiinoho Slova (MARS), or Workshop of the Revolutionary Word, was founded in Kyiv on Nov. 7, 1926, by some of
War

Ukrainians fled west for safety. Now Russian drones are following them

by Yuliia Taradiuk, Martin Fornusek, Kate Tsurkan
LUTSK, VOLYN OBLAST — Andrii Mazur has spent 24 years with Ukraine's State Emergency Service in Volyn Oblast, but during all that time, nothing has compared to the situation that has unfolded in recent weeks. He and his team have been dispatched to disaster areas eight times in seven days, operating round the clock as swarms of Russian jet-powered drones bombard Western Ukraine. "Above all, we fear for our colleagues on site, as nothing outweighs the worth of a human life," he told the Kyiv In
Culture

How Ukraine's annual radio dictation brings a nation together, one word at a time

by Kate Tsurkan
As it turns out, dictation exercises are not just for schoolchildren. On Oct. 27, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians — from diaspora communities abroad to service members on the front lines — will take part in an annual tradition: listening, writing, and testing their mastery of the Ukrainian language. Organized by Ukrainian Radio since 2000, the annual Radio Dictation celebrates the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language, bringing participants together to transcribe a text broadcast live acros
“This Cursed Beautiful Land” by Gershkovich, and charred trees in Voronezh, Russia, on Aug. 1, 2010.
Culture

The trouble with loving Russia: Evan Gershkovich's memoir seeks sentimentality in a lost country

by Kate Tsurkan
By the end of his pre-trial detention at Moscow's infamous Lefortovo Prison, American journalist Evan Gershkovich had developed a curious rapport with the FSB investigator tasked with proving he was a spy. "Most people break after four months or so, but you're still holding strong — a year in," the investigator told him, and the two raised their cigarettes in a toast to "having tried to find common ground." Gershkovich writes about many such moments in "This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-Am
The cover of “Naive My Love,” by Gunia Project, and “Pigeon and Dove” by Primachenko.
Culture

Inside Ukraine's world of naive art — and the Gunia aesthetic it inspired

by Kate Tsurkan
A cat's fur for a brush, crushed petals for paint, and an eye for beauty — as it turns out, that's all some Ukrainian artists needed to make some of the most distinctive paintings of the 20th century. "Naive My Love," a new coffee table book by French publisher Assouline in collaboration with Ukrainian fashion and design brand Gunia Project, celebrates the bold colors, imaginative motifs, and deeply personal visual language of Ukrainian naive and folk art. The book's visuals stand on their own

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