Soirée ukrainienne

With Laure Mandeville, Lara Marlowe, Lyuba Yakimchuk, Olesya Zdorovetska

Poets, musicians, journalists, soldiers... the war in Ukraine continues to inspire reaction and resistance in multiple forms.

Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko, the commander of a frontline drone unit in Donetsk, is one of the most striking personalities Lara Marlowe has encountered in forty-four years of journalism. Transposed into a gripping narrative by Marlowe, Mykytenko's experience has become a “true novel of the war in Ukraine” launched this evening in French translation in collaboration with Les Éditions de l'Observatoire. Lara will discuss the story of Comme il est bon de ne plus craindre la mort (How Good It Is I Have No Fear of Dying) and the current situation in Ukraine, with Laure Mandeville, her esteemed colleague at Le Figaro.

The arts play a very significant role in Ukrainian resistance and resilience, as a means of expression but also as a vehicle for solidarity and political messages. Having travelled from Ukraine, Lyuba Yakimchuk opens the evening with a performance of poems from her acclaimed collection, Apricots of Donbas. Recorded in audio format by actress Catherine Deneuve and translated into twenty languages, the title of Yakimchuk’s collection evokes the fact that where the apricot trees end, Russia begins. Olesya Zdorovetska, artist, musician, and ardent defender of the Ukrainian cause based in Ireland, performs her powerful Opus Doloris combination of piano and voice that breathes life into Ukrainian poetry from several eras.

An Ireland-Ukraine-France ‘verre d’amitié’ will be raised at the end of the evening.