In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Hanna Protasova, a Ukrainian literary scholar and journalist, who earned her Candidate of Sciences degree from Ukraine’s Taras Shevchenko Institute in 2021, specializing in Ukrainian literary modernism and émigré literature. Currently a PhD student in Comparative Literature at Western University, Canada, her dissertation examines Holocaust representation in Ukrainian fiction and non-fiction from the 1940s to 2020s.

We discuss whether Ukrainian writers, like Boris Pasternak or Jean-Paul Sartre, ever distanced themselves from Nobel Prize nominations due to political pressures, and what this reveals about the risks and responsibilities authors face under oppressive regimes. Dr. Protasova also explores the concept of “witness literature,” recognized by the Swedish Academy for its testimony to trauma, and considers whether both firsthand and imaginative accounts of the Holocaust in Ukrainian writing qualify as such. Finally, we delve into Iurii Klen’s haunting epic poem Ashes of Empires, focusing on its stark imagery, such as Jewish babies treated as footballs during the Holocaust, and its significance in Ukrainian literary history.U