Team
Kate Tsurkan
Culture ReporterKate 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.
Articles
'Not a guest house for Putin worshippers' — Controversial Russian rapper banned from entering Lithuania
Russian rapper Morgenshtern has been banned from entering Lithuania for 10 years after the government deemed him a potential "threat to national security."
‘Compared to Bakhmut, this is already a different war’ — novelist Myroslav Laiuk on his wartime reporting
As the full-scale war enters into its fourth year, novelist and poet Myroslav Laiuk has found himself drawn to front-line reporting. He has traveled everywhere, from Bakhmut to Pokrovsk and Kherson, documenting the war and those living through it.
His novel “The World Is Not Yet Made” is forthcoming in English translation from Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute, and his wartime reportage “Bakhmut” was published in English translation by Ukrainer earlier this year. (Kate Tsurkan, who conduct
'She wasn't afraid of the bombs' — Kherson locals in awe over Angelina Jolie's visit
For Kherson journalist Yevheniia Virlych, “difficult” doesn’t begin to describe day-to-day life in her city — “critical” is closer to the mark. So when American actress Angelina Jolie visited Kherson on Nov. 5, she and other local residents began to hope the world might finally look closer at how Russia is terrorizing them.
“Thanks to the fact that a star of truly global stature — someone with influence and media recognition — has seen the city’s realities firsthand, Kherson residents received
'They refuse to give in,' Angelina Jolie says on her Kherson, Mykolaiv visit
During her visit, Jolie was shown how medical and educational institutions in Ukraine's southern front-line regions have been moved into reinforced underground spaces to continue their operations, according to a press release from the organization.
Returning home, photographer Yelena Yemchuk finds beauty in a country at war
There was no doubt for photographer Yelena Yemchuk that upon returning to Ukraine, she would encounter the pain and loss that comes with the day-to-day reality of Russia's full-scale war — but she wasn't quite ready for how much love there was to go around, too.
"It's this understanding of what life is, the understanding of what love is, the understanding of human relationships, and this appreciation for the moment," Yemchuk told the Kyiv Independent.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever e
When will Russia attack next? Some Ukrainians turn to tarot readers to find out
The viewer count ticks upward — dozens, then hundreds, sometimes nearly a thousand. Just about everyone has tuned in for the same reason: to hear Tetya (Auntie) Fania’s latest predictions about the threat of Russian attacks against Ukrainian cities.
“(Let’s look at) Kyiv in November,” she says during a recent broadcast, picking cards from a shuffled deck. “There could be problems with resources beyond electricity, gas, and the like. There will be serious water problems in Kyiv…Maybe rolling bla
Russian authorities detain 18 year-old singer additional 13 days for 'petty hooliganism'
St. Petersburg police first detained Loginova, who performs under the stage name Naoko, on Oct. 15 after a video of her and her fellow bandmates performing anti-Kremlin songs by artists designated as "foreign agents" went viral.
'Bring Ukraine more weapons' — author Andriy Lyubka on cultural diplomacy's main wartime role
When the full-scale invasion began, Andriy Lyubka struggled to write. A celebrated Ukrainian writer and translator, he turned instead to fundraising, logistics, and delivering used cars to the front for soldiers' needs.
Yet somewhere between non-stop volunteer work and battling with exhaustion that comes from it, he began to see that even literature — words, sentences, imagination — could also serve Ukraine's cause, albeit in a less immediate way.
His volunteer work led him to write a book of
18 year-old Russian singer fined for 'discrediting' military, still in police custody over new pending charges
Instead of being released, Loginova is being kept overnight at the Police Department No. 76 in St. Petersburg after a new case was opened against her for holding an "unauthorized" public event, according to independent Russian outlet Mediazona.
Culture is not neutral: The troubling presence of Russia’s Eksmo in Frankfurt
There were two questions lingering over conversations among people at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair: Where was the stand of the Russian publisher Eksmo located, and why were they even allowed to be there nearly four years into Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine?
I will never forget the look of horror and disgust of one exiled Russian author, who is fiercely pro-Ukrainian and quietly attended many of Ukraine's events at the book fair with a visible awe at this year's event program, when h
Tetyana Berezhna voted in as new Culture Minister
Tetyana Berezhna had been serving as acting minister since August and previously worked as deputy economy minister from June 2022.
Ukrainian-American author Yurii Tarnawsky dies at 91
A co-founder of the New York Group — a collective of Ukrainian emigre writers — Tarnawsky helped to expand and redefine contemporary Ukrainian literature through his embrace of narrative structure experimentation and linguistic innovation.
Chernihiv renames one of its squares after Donald Trump
The decision to rename Fairy Tale Square was made “in order to honor prominent political leaders of modern times, as well as to draw international attention to the reconstruction of the hero city of Chernihiv," according to the explanatory note.
18 year-old Russian singer detained by St. Petersburg police for performing anti-Putin song
The band Stoptime has previously performed songs by artists labeled as "foreign agents" by the Russian government.
Ukraine's language ombudsman calls for Russian to be stripped from list of protected 'minority' languages over mistranslation
If adopted by parliament, the updated list would include Belarusian, Bulgarian, Gagauz, Crimean Tatar, Modern Greek, German, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech, and Hebrew.
