Literature at War and Migration

Marjana Gaponenko

Marjana Gaponenko was born in Odesa in 1981 and studied German language and literature there. After spending time in Krakow and Dublin, she now lives in Mainz and Vienna. She has been writing in German since she was sixteen and has published novels including Wer ist Martha? (2012), Das letzte Rennen (The Last Race, 2016), and Der Dorfgescheite (The Village Wise Man, 2018). She has been awarded the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, the Austrian Alpha Literature Prize, and the Martha Saalfeld Prize.

Alexander Kratochvil

Born in Munich in 1965, literary scholar and literary translator, private lecturer, lives in Berlin and Munich. He studied Slavic studies, ethnology, German studies, and Eastern European history in Munich, Freiburg, Brno, and Lviv. His research focuses primarily on Czech and Ukrainian prose of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Verena Nolte

Born in Neuenbürg, Master of Arts in Modern German Literature and French at the Free University of Berlin, she worked as a translator, editor, and author, publishing stories, novellas, and essays in newspapers, magazines, anthologies, catalogs, and on the radio. Her book Der Milchkrug was published in 2020. Since 2015, she has been organizing “Eine Brücke aus Papier” (Paper Bridge) – Ukrainian-German writers' meetings in Ukraine and Germany.

Winter School 2026 “Ukrainian Migration in Europe and Globally in the 20th and 21st Century”

This event is part of the Winter School 2026 “Ukrainian Migration in Europe and Globally in the 20th and 21st Century” in Munich, organized by “Denkraum Ukraine” / “Think Space Ukraine” at the University of Regensburg, financed by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) through the funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA), the Ukrainian Free University (UFU, Munich), the Bukovina Institute at the University of Augsburg, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Slavic Department) and the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) Regensburg.

The Winter School addresses the issue of Ukrainian migration within its manyfold dimensions. Over 25 international speakers will deepen into a larger historical perspective of Ukrainian migration in the 20th and 21st century. They will discuss how Ukrainian culture, in particular literature, mirrors migration, explore how Ukrainians have experienced flight and migration, considering their age and gender. The legal and political dimensions of the phenomenon, including the regional dynamics of migration, as well as the perception of Ukrainians and Russia’s war against Ukraine will also be in the focus of the event.

Location: Ukrainian Free University (UFU), Barellistraße 9a, 80638 Munich