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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
A Russian opposition figure tries — and fails — to mythologize Zelensky
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky has come to occupy a singular place in the global imagination: not merely as Ukraine’s president, but as the voice through which the country’s courage and endurance are made legible to the world.
While an ongoing political scandal in Ukraine has involved some in Zelensky’s own inner circle, for many at home and abroad, it is in his public presence that the war’s meaning, its stakes, and its moral contours are most cle
Ukraine's parliament strips Russian from 'protected minority language' list
"Today we have finally restored historical justice and turned the page on years of distortions that were used for political pressure and to legitimize Russification. We have demonstrated our maturity as a European state," Language Ombudsman Olena Ivanovska said on Dec. 3.
Alla Horska’s life and death in Ukraine’s struggle against Russian annihilation
Editor's Note: This story was originally published in The Kyiv Independent's first-ever print edition, titled "The Power Within." You can order a copy in our e-store.
Carrying a portrait of Ukrainian artist Alla Horska at her funeral, poet Vasyl Stus, who would himself perish in a Russian labor camp 15 years later, did not shy away from calling her death a murder.
On that mournful day, when it fell to Stus to speak, he delivered a poem written in Horska’s memory. Its stark opening line — “Toda
Moldova's Foreign Ministry confronts Russian ambassador with drone that violated country's airspace
"Such incidents are unacceptable. The Republic of Moldova has rejected and will firmly reject every attack against its security and territorial integrity," Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi said during a press conference on Nov. 26.
Media investigation examines how 'neutral' Russian Red Cross supports Kremlin's war effort
In mid-November, the RRC and the Movement of the First co-organized a first aid competition for children from across Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories.
The Soviets tried to silence Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus. A new exhibition honors his legacy
While the Soviet authorities promoted their vision of ideological "universalism" — a homogenized identity that suppressed national cultures — dissenting voices were silenced through arrests, intimidation, and even murder.
Yet amid this repression, courageous figures refused to surrender their cultural identity. Among them was the poet Vasyl Stus (1938-1985), one of the era's greatest Ukrainian dissidents.
The new exhibition "As Long As We're Here, Everything Will Be Fine" at Kyiv's Mystetskyi
Why I won’t encourage my Ukrainian child to speak Russian
As a foreigner in Ukraine, I often hesitate to speak on certain social issues. Despite living here for nearly a decade, I know that my American upbringing still limits how deeply I can feel what my Ukrainian friends and colleagues experience, no matter how much I sympathize.
Still, now that I have given birth to a Ukrainian citizen, I feel I have the right to say at least this: I will never allow my child to believe there isn't a difference between speaking Ukrainian and Russian.
Recently, I w
'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
Editors' Picks
'The key to ending the war is in Brussels' — Ukrainians react to Belgium's Russian asset loan opposition
Youth exodus — Ukraine's young people are increasingly quitting their jobs to go abroad
Investigation: Secret visits to Moscow by China’s military expose deep defense cooperation, military procurement deals
